Where the Stars Gleam
by Aiko Isari
Summary: Cyber Sleuth AU. Sequel to If the Moon Shines. After a set of events following her double-edged promotion to Platinum Tamer, Sayo returns home for a long needed vacation. In the process she gets propelled into a meeting that forces her to confront the past she lost, whether she's prepared to or not. Multiple canons incorporated.
1. Arc I: Chapter 1

_Warnings: past character death, PTSD, depression, implied past violence, child soldiers, learning disorders, swearing, humanoid characters_

* * *

 **Arc One: To Be Restless**

 **Chapter One: That Which is Seen With Love**

 _I always told Annie that my first memory was of a flashlight beam. That was a lie. To be honest, I think she knew. She wouldn't have kept asking if she didn't. My first memory was of light, though. Gentle golden light, eternal spring grass in my toes, and a child, telling me my name._

With a small, heavy sigh, Sayo entered another sequence into her laptop computer. The utensils in her kitchen drawers floated into a box, followed by the pots and pans in another. A little white orb floated to watch, spinning and swirling in place. Her food stuffs vanished bit by bit,sent to the nearest food pantry. The waves rolled over beneath the gentle sand at her bare feet. Behind her, boxes vanished one by one, zipping into her Digivice.

It had taken almost a year and a half for her actions to come back and bite her in the ass. For her saving DigitalCITY to have real consequences. (Because the loss wasn't enough, the promotion, the repairs, the extra work wasn't enough.) No, the bodies that had assisted in the _refinement_ , if you could call it that, of the home she had been in since she was very small, had decided for her to pay for the destruction of Sunshine, for attacking both of her commanders, and for breaking protocol and going off on her own on a likely suicidal mission. For all of those things, and probably for what happened after, she had to pay. There was no way to fine her (It would just be fining themselves) and they had enough trouble jailing her mother. It was more trouble than it was worth, and she knew it.

 _That first memory is always there, in the back of my mind with the whispers of pain. I can never see the child all the way. It's too dark, and the stars and the moons don't shed enough light. But their hair is a shade of mine, and unruly with tattered knife cuts. They are smiling._

 _Or at least that's what it looks like to me._

Sayo heard her Digivice beep, but she paid it no mind. She simply keyed in more and more code, the only language she could write fluently anymore, of any kind. It would just be the same crappy message anyway:

"To Tsukino Sayo,

Due to the Chrono Core Incident and its effects upon DigitalCITY, your Tamer Union license, ranked Platinum Tamer as of March fifteenth, has been suspended. You must return your Union regulated Digivice to the supervisor of your rank until further notice. Thank you for your service to the worlds. It has been noted and appreciated."

There was no signature, but she knew who had written this notice. It was the Holy Beasts, back from their time observing on Earth to check on the pet project they loathed. Their biggest black mark.

Which she wouldn't have made darker if it weren't for them wallowing. Then again, she couldn't talk. She had driven it into the paper her damn self. Just like they had, to be honest.

Her Digivice rang again, rapid tones of nagging clangs. Sayo let out a sigh. "Accept call," she ordered, brushing her nearly-waist length purple hair more smoothly under the brim of her cat-eared old battered thing had seen better days, but she still touched its ears with gentle, fond fingertip strokes, feeling what twitched beneath the wool. She didn't know if she could ever get rid of it. There was too much clinging to it. Like static. Like home.

A young, still slightly chubby face framed in white hair materialized in a projected screen above the top port, followed by a torso clothed in bright pastel. The hologram of her little sister waved, smile sretched a bit thin at the edges. "Sis, you could have picked up the phone ages ago, you know that?"

"I thought it was Union," Sayo mumbled, olive cheeks darkening. "Leave me alone."

"Nooooo~!" Sayo didn't look up, resisting the well-honed sibling instincts at the sound of a voice pouting. She wasn't quite sure how it worked, but she was certain Yuki had it down to a science. "Coach is stuck in paperwork hell so he asked me to call you instead."

Sayo managed a snort. "You're not supposed to swear."

She could see Yuki huffing out of the corner of her eye, the hologram filling with static for a moment at the gesture. "Papa's not here to tell me I can't!"

"I'm boss in place of dad and you know it," she retorted, lips quirking in a grin. Dad still fussed at her over her own mouth, not even because she was a girl, because her dad was cool like that, but because she was already digging a ditch, no need to make it worse on herself. Not that her dad was in Digital at the moment to scold her, so she was pretty much home free, all things considered. Still, she was trying to be better about it. It was the right thing to do. She brushed her hair back again, catching it in the sea breeze.

Yuki made another noise and then tapped her fingers against her arm. "Are the big jerks emailing you again?" The white orb made a noise, which went ignored. Yuki couldn't even see it.

"Mmhm." She typed in another line and her FARM islands began to shift and squirm, turning from their tamer home training worlds into the relaxing fields of residental islands. Some people did raise Digimon at home for a living, and it sure would earn her some cash while she was off of work. "I have an escort coming today for me to meet the highest level of authority."

Yuki sneered. It was an expression that had been more and more common for her face since Sayo had brought her home. Since the Chrono Core and the flashes of light and death everywhere.

It was really hard not to think about it anymore.

 _Some weeks she would play with me every day, that child, or months would go by without a word. Sometimes I felt stronger the longer she was gone, like there was more of me. And sometimes there was less of her._

 _One day she said she'd would come back and she didn't._

"Just gonna rub it in, aren't they?"

Sayo laughed grimly. "Probably not. They're not that stupid. I hope. I've never even met them." _That I remember._

"Well, we never know." Yuki lowered her hands for a moment, petting something off screen. Likely one of her Digimon. "They could do it, since they're spending more time on Earth with their pet projects than regulating this place."

"True enough." She sighed and Phascomon waddled in, or at the very least, waddled to the top of the ladder from his little nesting area. He hated ladders.

"Sayo-chi!" he said through a mouthful of what was probably pudding. He could never have enough pudding. "Escort's here. Can I let him in?"

Sayo was half-tempted to say no, but the pout on Yuki's face was too much to handle at this point by herself. "Yeah, sure. Thanks,"

"Course." His normally bubbly, sleepy voice was tinged with sadness. "I'm your Navi-Digimon after all."

Sayo pretended he hadn't just twisted her heart into another complicated set of pretzel knots and went to climb the ladder to reach him. She went over to the platform and let him hop down, catching him in her arms. Her lazy, playful Digimon, the first Digimon Julia had given her, to balance out _her_ high strung paranoia, which had not been good for a child suffering from hallucinations and anxiety coupled with panic attacks, to put it simply. She hadn't asked him to lately, but at the time, he had been the closest thing to security she had constantly had by his side. The least she could do was give him another hug, she supposed.

"You sure you don't wanna come with?" she asked him. He would be welcome, she knew that. He shook his naturally battered head.

"You won't be gone that long," he said simply. "Just until the legal nonsense and your therapy gets settled and they deem you fit for work again. You can't stay away."

Sayo pet him, fingers curling as she scratched behind one torn ear. "Yeah, I guess so." She didn't think 'fit for work' was a good descriptor for her, period.

With clear reluctance, he left her arms, returning to his typical perch. "I'm gonna go let the escort in."

Sayo nodded, dropping her arms slowly before returning to her call. "You wanna stay on the line?"

Yuki shrugged, messing with the pixels again. "Well, I won't get to call you again for another three weeks, so I'll enjoy the time I've got."

Sayo forced her face to keep its neutral sort of smile and turned to the blue light of the teleport pad as it lit up. The person who formed there swept their brown hair back under the slight containment of the eggshell white goggle strap, gray eyes blinking out the artificial sunlight as they moved off. They patted down their pants and grinned at her.

'Lo," he said, sounding as relaxed as he ever did. He even looked similar to the last time they'd seen each other, five years ago with her in her first, scratchy Union uniform and him apologizing for not being able to see her final exam. She had punched him hard on the arm for that, like it really had been some sort of big deal.

"Kudo Taiki," she said, and her lips quirked. "Thought you were dead."

"Worse." He grinned ruefully, scratching his head and the mass of messy hair. "I was being a secret agent, for _Earth_."

Sayo wrinkled her nose by playful reflex and led him inside. She didn't have as much resentment as most families here did, though she arguably should. Earth, and thinking about it, just made her tired. "I thought they hated you."

"Are you saying that they don't?" He shrugged his lanky shoulders and dipped his head politely in Yuki's general direction. "Seen one half-human, seen 'em all. They almost didn't catch on on the first mission, but you know me. Luck runs out."

Sayo tilted her head thoughtfully, patting the bed next to her. Yuki waved excitedly at him from her projection and the little white light that stuck around the place spun about in its own puzzled way. Yuki had always liked Taiki, for whatever reason. Probably because of all the people who Sayo didn't remember, he seemed like he had the calmest head on his shoulders. Or maybe it was because he didn't act like Sayo was glass. She wasn't entirely sure. "And?" she prompted, now well and truly curious. It wasn't like she had to be stripped of all proper rank and dignity at a specific time. Being distracted was always a good time killer.

"And space time crap happened," he answered with a grimace. "Not gonna say any more than that. Who knows what that'll do?"

Phascomon jumped down with a tea tray balanced on his plush head, somehow not spilling any. Taiki gratefully took a cup and the plate of cookies. Sayo took the other cup as Phascomon tittered. "Lots of things, Taiki-kun," he chirped. "Good and bad."

Taiki scratched behind a worn ear. "No offense, buddy, but I'd rather not risk the 'bad' as much, you know?"

Sayo chortled before she could stop herself. "Where's your sense of adventure?" The words rang hollow in her own ears.

Taiki only smiled at her again. "With your sense of self-preservation probably."

She almost laughed and out of the corner of her eye, saw Yuki grinning from ear to ear. She looked away from her and grinned at Taiki, who was just munching politely on a cookie. "Good, huh?"

"Mmhm." He licked his fingers free of crumbs and adjusted to sit cross-legged on the bed. He looked around her Tamer Home, watching the waves as they moved. Sayo let him, closing her eyes.

 _It was a very lonely time. I wandered and wandered and she never appeared. But someone did. A broken spirit man did. He was vaguely familiar to me. I didn't like that because I hadn't met many people. He had said things to me, things my mind hadn't understood, but it doesn't matter, because I don't know what happens after that._

Durante and Roni, and all her other FARM kids, they were already where they needed to be, ie, not in her Digivice. It was the first time since her childhood that she hadn't heard the sound of Digimon this close, and she didn't even remember that

"i'm going to take a leap of faith and assume that you feel like utter garbage and don't really want to talk about it."

Taiki's bluntness was surprising to anyone who had never been around him for under an hour at a time when he was worried. All of his filters tended to drop and his worry came out in full force. It had been a while since Sayo had been hit with such violent expression of concern, but her family was often thinking about her so she was starting to get used to it.

If only she deserved it. After everything-

 _I'd like to think I'm a good person, sometimes. When I smile and give people what they want, I tend to be a good person. But when I watch them die, when they die because of something I've done, well, I'm really awful then. And I know which of the two tends to happen more and more._

 _All I did was lay there, horrified and scared, even though I've already been through plenty. I could have killed that thing, saved that thing, without them around. If I had just dug deeper into what I was, instead of not remembering, not even trying to remember because it gave me such a headache and all of these nightmares. If I had just been a bit braver and faced it, at least they would be here._

 _Luna though? I think she was doomed from the start. Since the day she showed up at my apartment when I was a kid, she was probably dead._

-"I don't know how to feel anymore." Yuki's silence caused Sayo to forget she was on the line for a minute. "I just..." She raised her hands helplessly and shrugged. "I don't know how to… anything… anymore."

Taiki didn't offer any soothing words or any remote pithy comments. He just smiled very sadly and said. "Yeah. That's how it is, isn't it?"

The week after that final fight with Chrono Core had ended, she would have yelled at him for saying that. All she really did now was nod, and wipe at tears she wasn't actually shedding. She'd probably run out. It was fitting to be honest.

For a while, they just sat there, quietly, amicably. They could do that. Even Yuki had busied herself with something off-screen. Then Sayo sighed. "You're my escort, huh?"

"One of the only perks of working directly for the Union Command." Taiki's voice was as dry as sandpaper. "I get all of the cushy jobs."

Sayo laughed, and the sound reminded her of bland mashed potatoes. "I'm almost looking forward to leaving this place."

"You don't get to stop fighting."

"I can pretend." Her voice cracked at last. "I'm good at that."

"We're all a bunch of clowns in a circus," he agreed, looking now at the fake sky. "I'm working on changing this ruling."

Sayo frowned, picking up another cookie. "Why? I did all of those things I was found guilty for."

"You were found guilty without trial and based on intentionally unbiased reports." Taiki shook his head. "You were found guilty for doing your job as a Union Tamer, a job none of us were meant to even have, with less resources and funds than you deserved. You were found guilty for keeping our home from falling out of the sky and paid a cost for it." He smiled bitterly. "I'm not saying you need a parade or anything. That's the last thing a hero actually needs. But this should be a vacation, a paid-for chance to get something into your life, not some exile."

"But we're all living in exile." Yuki was so quiet, and so smart sometimes. "We're all here because we are their mistakes. We are the people that they didn't want."

The 'they' was so vague it was specific. Because there were a few important 'they's in the creation of this faraway CITY. And like this, anyone could refer to one or two and it would be the same thing. The same ache and loss and pain from everyone. Even the children who were born here knew it because it was in everything that the citizens had built and lost and made. It was in the history books, short as they were.

And if they didn't read their textbooks, there was the graveyard set alongside the nearest way to the Digital Sea, full of graves that weren't from old age or illness. Each of them was marked with bone-white stone.

CITY was a ragtime bunch of ruffians and criminals and _children_ , and it built up too soon, too fast. She knew a lot of people who lived and died to do it. Everyone did. The world was young.

Taiki nodded, lifting his hands up. "Still. I'm going to get this sentence overturned, even if you never put on a Union uniform again. You should have peace, and if I don't, if no one does anything, they can drag you in and scapegoat you for whatever reason they did this. So don't tell me no on this one."

Sayo took her hat into her hands, revealing the twitching purple and white that had made her hat move. "I don't think I ever could."

Taiki reached over and touched her shoulder and didn't shift when she flinched. He never backed down and sometimes that hurt all the more. "Yeah. You can. But you trust me."

"That's a bad habit of mine." She tried to grin as she spoke.

Taiki scratched his head. "I wouldn't necessarily say that's bad..." Then again, his own was worse. He trailed off, eyes catching sight of the glimmering light now by her empty laundry basked. "By the way, who's your little spirit friend?"

Sayo looked up and held out her hands to it instead of answering him. The ball of light spun awkwardly and floated down, landing on her lap as much as a spirit could. It shifted and swirled, forming into the body of a young child, who stared up at him with beady black eyes.

"The Chrono Core," she replied, and pretended her heart didn't just thud like it always did.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ And we are here! Happy New Year's Day! Thanks for waiting! It's time for the sequel, the fic I've been waiting to write since I saw the first videos of Cyber Sleuth in Japanese with the Sayo DLC. That was really what started it all to be honest. Anyway, if you clicked this and did not read the sequel, please go look for it! I'm pretty proud of it. For now, I'll keep this story rated 'T' but I may have to bump it to 'M' eventually. We will have to see. Until then, please review! It really helps me out as a writer, you see. Thanks so much!

Also, why is Taiki there? The Super Xros Wars games are a part of the Digimon Story series, therefore the Xros Wars cast, like the Savers cast, can also be considered a part of the games. Which is fun. Anyway, please review!

 **Challenges:** AU Diversity Boot Camp - prompt: violet (contextual reassignment!AU), Gameverse Boot Camp prompt: utter, What If Challenge, DFC Love Buckets Write-A-Thon, Epic Masterclass Challenge Story/World List Season Remix Tapes (season rewrite), Season Rewrite Boot Camp prompt 'living', New Years Long Haul, 100 Prompts, 100 MCs prompt 'wishful thinking' and Diversity Writing (Game/Gen) M18.


	2. I: Chapter 2

_Warning for PTSD, depression, anger issues, and past implied abuse. Also allusions to sexism._

* * *

 **Chapter Two: If You Live Past Childhood, At Least, At Least…**

 _I don't like hospitals, or needles. I don't like white coats or flickering lightbulbs. All of those things remind me of pain, of the gaping hole in my head. It reminds me of how cowardly I am._

Her first day awake after making it home from the fight had been sticky and hot. A week after beating the Chrono Core, a week after losing almost all of her main team, there she was, boiling from the inside out. It started to go down after three days but she hurt too much to care. She had simply rolled over and gone back to sleep. She hadn't noticed the weight, tiny and unnoticeable as it was. She didn't notice as she stumbled from room to room, heading towards the carefully pushed away bathroom. She made it there and promptly threw up.

There wasn't much to it for her thankfully. She had had at most had soup broth and crackers the whole week because while she had been starving food had not been what she wanted. It had been something else and everything had been locked up and she had hated it but going out had sounded worse.

Not to mention every other self loathing thought had made its home in her head. Those had made it difficult enough to chew.

The heat, finally gone from her body but not the outside, made her skin tingle. She rubbed her eyes and started to totter forward towards her bathroom.

She had heard her puppet bear squeak a greeting from the other side and managed to nod. Her head throbbed, cotton fuzz in her mouth and dried tear tracks on her face. Her hands were dried bloody, left unclean from all the fighting.

She went to stand up and then moved to the sink. Her long purple and messy hair, like handwriting scrawls, lifted from her bare back for a moment. She didn't pay any attention. Then again, to be fair, she wasn't really thinking about anything in particular. If she tried, her mind would turn to disintegration and screaming.

Something shifted past her hip. She looked down to see a white and blue rabbit, her rabbit, stubbornly clutching her fingers and leading her to the bath.

"Luna?" Sayo croaked. Her throat burned, swollen. "What's up?"

"Don't look at the mirror," she murmured and Sayo, too tired to think of the why, obeyed.

But as the bath ran, her brain couldn't help but turn. And in the steaming bathwater, her reflection slowly grew clear before her eyes.

There wasn't a scrawny girl staring back at her now. Her sharply angled face had suddenly softened, heart-shaped and accenting the small size of her mouth and nose. Her olive skin was darker all around from the week splayed over her sheets, refusing clothes or any kind of fabric, tossing and turning and forgetting to let the sun set on her Tamer Home because it had seemed so irrelevant. She could see the lines of muscle that had been forming more over the past few months, as she had trained and worked harder than before, as her body had started to rebel. The scars of childhood were almost pink on her skin. She could see the swell of her breasts, and she didn't like it much.

A young woman, or the societal mocking definition of one, blinked back at her. She would be someone's definition of beautiful if it weren't for her haggard eyes, she assumed. But Sayo didn't see a woman on the cusp of adulthood, and considering the transition to this had been picking up more as the years went on, it wasn't something that really could be avoided. Still, she felt sick again.

She let out a choked sob, laughing almost with it. "Luna… I look like my mom."

Yes, she was her mother at sixteen, dark and pretty and deadly. All things considered, with her babies dead, it was all too accurate of a comparison.

 _I'm not fond of pain, but I'm very good at enduring it. I'm not good at defense but I have good counters. When I want to. I mean, I suppose I would be a better fighter if I wanted to be. But that's the truth about everything. Does that mean that they died because I didn't want them to live? I bet that's the case._

There was a huff of air and Sayo turned, nerves aflame. Nothing. At first. The sunlight was obscuring something. Something gray and washed out -like her mind felt, too tired to actually put anything real to words- floated there, spinning and spiraling with some unknown power. It touched her fingers and she jerked her hand back. As she did, however, the tiny thing changed shape, spiraling from a simple little orb into the rough figure of a small child. Black, wispy hair almost covered gray eyes narrowed with discomfort. It was trying to be annoyed.

"You defeated me," it said in this high little voice that almost sounded familiar to her. "You are the victor. You should not look like you are the one in pain."

"Chrono Core." Sayo felt the words fall out of her mouth, not in surprise, but in a calm sort of realization. Then she turned away. It should have been something to concern her, to scare her, to make her call the chief. She should have felt anger, staring at the thing that had murdered so many people she loved But the water was still steaming hot, and she'd been comatose for a week or so. She pressed her toes to the water.

"I beat you," Sayo finally said after she was almost entirely submerged in the bath. "But that doesn't mean I won."

* * *

"I call him Keiichi."

Taiki helped her fold a sheet as she spoke, then another. "And you've had the one who blasted CITY nearly back into gang wars part two just hanging out here for the past year and a half." He didn't sound irritated. In fact, he sounded impressed. "Sounds like something I would do."

Keiichi floated behind her. disgruntled frown twisting his little face. Like always, he tended to be quiet unless it was just Sayo and her Digimon in the room. "I thought that after a while," Sayo admitted, letting him take the rest and going to her pillowcases. She shook one out. "But he's never done anything. He just… he was just a little kid." That didn't really excuse anything. However, the assumption always was 'we have done worse'.

"Well, as long as he doesn't cause any trouble," Taiki shrugged. "I don't see a problem. Anyone else know?"

"Yeah but even Julia doesn't care." Another snap of a pillowcase.

Taiki placed the cover in the appropriate hamper before going to remove the curtain. She was a little amused that he was helping, but then, that would get them both home faster. Also it was Taiki. When wasn't he helping people for no reason? "She's not taking this well, huh?"

"She is not a happy Dark Dragon owner," Sayo agreed, lips twitching. "Still too few Tamers for all the homes they keep preparing. My replacement's just getting mine."

"Do you know them?"

Sayo paused, glancing at her now off digivice (Yuki had been dragged off for work) and then nodded. "Yeah, you know the guy who made GateDisks?" She doubted Koh liked the title but it did give him street credit.

Taiki snorted. "Yeah, a bit. Not much about him. The technicians in the Platinum sector hate his guts. They had been working on that for ages then he just walked in with a fancy product and they had to go to something new."

Sayo wondered if Koh knew. Or cared. Did she care? "Ah. Well, it's his sister." At Taiki's raised eyebrow, she shrugged. "She's getting Night Claw designation until her anger issues are handled better than 'I'm handling it' every time her higher ups catch her with her fist in someone else's mouth after something stupid. She'll be going in here in a few weeks after the thing is scrubbed of me. Except Phascomon. He gets to stay."

"Lucky him."

Sayo glanced at him. "It's all right, you know. Kinda happy to be going."

"You don't lose six digimon in under two years, along with everything else that's gone on and be all right, Sayo." Taiki smiled grimly. "Speaking from experience."

Sayo chuckled dryly. "Uncle Shinta's going to make sure I'm all right, since dad's on Earth."

"I must have passed him." Taiki recognized the subject change as what it was and let it go. "He's got your mom's partner on him, right?"

"Yep." Sayo took a moment to climb up the mattress to reach the dream catcher overhead (which never worked anyway, surprise) "His is too big and he's supposedly training some poor sod." Sayo's few memories of her dad's partner included that he wasn't allowed to sit at the dinner table and he liked to shout a lot for some reason. Never good for the heart. His two friends, the… Sistermons? They were good though.

Taiki chuckled. "I guess someone has to be covert. That's clearly not me."

"Not even close, Taiki." Sayo shook her head. "I'm really surprised it took this long."

Taiki let her jump to the floor as he lifted the final sheet off, watching the bed disperse into data. He shook his head and sighed. "They've been avoiding this place as much as possible. They're in mourning."

"They've been in mourning for _years_." A spark of irritation entered her voice, almost making her jump. "I wasn't even allowed a month before that 'get off your ass' letter came in. They wanted to get rid of me, they should have done it _then_. Maybe Luna wouldn't have gone out like that." She then laughed after she spoke. "Oh no wait, it's _me_ , she would have."

She was harping on it, on the Holy Beasts, a little, but… was that such a bad thing? Wasn't it good that she cared?

Annie would be able to answer that better than her.

Taiki smiled a bit more to cover her, even to make her feel better. "Who knows? They needed someone to take care of the Demon Lord wraiths, and you had proved to be strong enough."

"More like stupid enough." They weren't even full Demon Lords. They were like ... cardboard cutouts of Demon Lords. What was the big deal?

"More like disposable." Taiki clicked his tongue. "So, yeah, you're just giving me more fuel than what I already had. But for what it's worth, I doubt the decision was unanimous."

"I'll see when I get there." She went to the clothes dangling off of her last hook. "I'm going to go change while my bathroom's still around."

"Probably a good idea." He grinned a bit too wide. "Your clothes fit?"

Sayo felt her olive face darken. "I was hoping you hadn't noticed the puberty."

Taiki failed to contain his amusement, sitting on her mattress and laughing outright.. "Sayo, I'm half of a fallen angel, I know what half-Digimon puberty does to people, especially dragon people. Go change, for the sake of your tail." He watched her leave the room and turned back to work, shaking his head.

Well, it was good to know he could make her feel _something_.

* * *

The sector for Platinum Tamers was smaller than even the Tamer Union training grounds. You couldn't get there via actual teleportation pads (thank everything because with the way her stomach felt, Sayo knew she wouldn't be able to handle it) but it was more like an improved version of the giant metal box that originally brought them up here to this alternate dimention. At least until it supposedly crashed somewhere in the pothells (yes, not potholes) of Ancient Canyon. Then, well, some really weird ass GateDisks. Sayo didn't question it. She just settled into her chair on one curved seat and leaned back. Taiki had a little more trouble, but then, he had a good twelve centimeters of height on her at the very least.

At least he didn't lord it over her like Newton.

Finally, he settled down and the small pod zoomed off into the air like a demented baseball. Inside, the occupants couldn't feel it, but anyone who saw it would be disturbed and probably expect everything to crash and burn. Sayo, for her part, dared it to try. Between the two of them, they were likely to survive. Or at least Taiki would. She had yet to get on his father's bad side. She didn't want to risk it now by letting him end up as charcoal. Former god and all of that. Or something.

"Do you have Tamer Homes as a Platinum Tamer?" She couldn't stand the silence all of a sudden. It gave her too much room to think.

Taiki stretched a bit before shaking his head. "No point. We usually have a lot of long time missions, so we tend to just go home. If they need us, there's a number to call but that's basically about it, you know?"

"Mm." That would have been her. It might be if she got new Digimon, which she could, and survived this inquiry Taiki was going to make, which she probably wouldn't.

"Where are you supposed to go after this?" Taiki passed her a red drink and she sipped it. She normally didn't like soda, but the fizz almost felt acceptable on her throat. She let out a small cough and almost spat. Though was a lot sweeter than she remembered it being. Then she shrugged and took another slow drink. She would probably need the sugar in this for whatever they had to say to her.

After a moment, Taiki's question registered. "My Uncle Shinta's taking me in, since the Chief isn't home enough and these ears are too obvious to send me to where dad is, and I'd be a security hazard." She tilted her head at him, more keeping up conversation than anything else. "Why?"

"Because I'm not allowed to do any missions for the next few months." At Sayo's quirked eyebrow, he added. "I got in trouble overworking. "

Sayo frowned. "They think that will stop you?"

Taiki waved a hand. "They have hope. I like destroying it."

Sayo felt her lips twitch. "You awful person you."

"I know." He looked out the window. "Can't even say thank you."

"Higher ups aren't good at that."

"They aren't." For a moment, Sayo felt like she was breathing. Then she sat back against the cushion and ruined it.

Taiki probably noticed, but he didn't say anything this time. Instead, he pointed to an odd looking set of rocks. "In there."

When she narrowed her eyes, it was much easier to tell that it wasn't just a unusual group of rocks on a cliff face, but a building, carefully inserted into the ground. There were odd panels of something that might be glass inserted from the inside, but that could just as easily be shinier stones from here. As they grew closer, however, she could make up the separation of the window panes, the marked gleam of cleaner.

"Ah yes," Taiki said quietly, watching the rocks begin to open like a dog's mouth eagerly awaiting a ball to catch. "The bomb shelter. Is the code still in your old Digivice?"

Sayo tilted her head. "I don't remember. Might be. Why?"

Taiki shook his head. "They might ask. In case your decommissioning gets revoked during an emergency, you'll have to get people out." At Sayo's blank stare, he shrugged. "We can have them check and reinstall it after the meeting." The great orb began to descend, making Sayo grip the cushion. He tried to smile. "At least it's not teleporters, hey?"

"At least," she managed to grunt. Stupid teleportation.

After a few more moments of wobbling and shaking as the craft descended (Sayo couldn't remember the trip up to CITY but she assumed it had to have been worse than this had been. If it wasn't there was no way this could be legal… oh wait this place wasn't legal.), a great maw opened in one of the rock faces, revealing metal frames glowing a delighted silver.

"Does it have to be this way every time?" She managed to say through gritted teeth. Something's grip tightened about her neck and she looked up, seeing the ghostly form of the Chrono Core at her back. "What are you doing here?"

"Your home's empty," he replied. She couldn't see his face, but she assumed the boy was pouting. "I'm not going to wait there for you to come back. How can I learn to surpass you if you don't return?"

"You never will," Taiki said blandly, causing Keiichi to jump. Sayo almost smiled. If she didn't know any better, she'd almost think he was giving her a compliment.

The windows shuttered abruptly, making her flinch. "Uh."

"Prevents accidental window breaking," he answered, finishing his drink. "And after you move out of your tamer home and the new establishments settled, no, you don't have to. But before that, there's a trial period. You have to get the paperwork filled out. Your rank proven in a battle test-" At the look on her face, he grinned sheepishly. "-Yes I know, another one, but it's more for you than your digimon. You also have to upgrade your Digivice, prove your weapons proficiency, mess with your salary, a whole mess of crap."

"And I have to do it even though I'm _not_ going to be a Tamer anymore?"

Taiki nodded. "It's the concession they offered. Your dad accepted it for you in case your Uncle wasn't taking you I assume."

Sayo blinked. That sounded like her father. He was always worrying like that. He was the one who should worry. He was the one in the lion's den. "I guess so… Must have happened before the trials."

"Nothing like having a birthday while under legal scrutiny," Taiki deadpanned, pressing one of his hands to the seam where the door started.

Sayo felt herself smile, chapped lips and all. "Story of your life, huh?"

Taiki laughed, eyes starting to twinkle. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"Stop apologizing."

Taiki laughed again at that. Then he stood up, pressing his hand against the door. Sayo didn't move. The orb was still moving. She didn't want to try vomiting as a new experience again. He knocked against the door. Seconds later, something beeped in its holster on his hip. Taiki pulled it out, leaving the screen flat. From Sayo's perspective, it looked quite a bit like a red microphone.

"Taiki-kun," greeted a low voice from the other side. "That's you, right?"

"Yep," he replied. "Have Sayo with me too. We clear to land?"

"Give it one sec," said the voice. "We have to process a new city member. From Earth."

Sayo's eyebrows shot up to her hairline and Taiki wasn't much better. "We _what._ "

"I know." They chuckled. "We haven't had anybody new up here in almost six years. The rumor mill started that they managed to hack into enough government shit to reach classified data. Ie, us. Wherever they were, the higher ups were not happy. So up they go. Just the rumor though. You didn't hear it from me."

"Course not." Taiki glanced at Sayo, who obediently pressed a finger to her lips. "How long until we can dock?"

"You're almost in, they're just getting someone else to do the interrogation for them. It's like they think whoever it was found anything _current_."

Taiki laughed again. Sayo watched the door instead. Someone new was coming up to CITY. It wasn't anything new. Digimon lived here, humanoids lived here, humans lived here, all sorts came to the magical land between dimensions now that it was getting its act together more and more as years passed. But Earth? Earth threw them up and shut its doors. Sayo couldn't remember the last time someone had been sent up here. (She assumed Taiki did.) She knew at least one person had _left_ and never returned and that they sent their own back sometimes, just to watch, just to be safe. It was a hard place to return to, she figured. But to be thrown up… things must be bad down there.

Was it really her problem now though? It wasn't like she could fight. Her main partners now were pets, not murderbeasts.

She broke from her thoughts at the soft hiss of air beneath her feet. The capsule stopped moving and the door slid open after a moment. Taiki moved out first before extending a hand to help her up.

The urge to slap his hand away, to declare her independence that she didn't need help, passed as quickly as it formed, and Sayo let him help her up into what may be her new headquarters someday. Maybe.

As she looked around, Taiki saluted someone a short distance away.. They saluted back and Taiki exhaled.

"All right," he said, trying to smile. His fingers twitched like there were hilts her could grasp and throw, handles to doors he could close. "Let's get this over with now, okay?"

Sayo watched the fear in his face, the low fire anger and the sadness. He had no pity. CITY children had no time for pity. But they had time to be rocks and steel. She could do that for him just this once, right? She could thank him for sticking his neck out, and risking the rumors. Old friends could show bias anywhere but over guilt, they said, and he was doing it anyway.

Well, Kudo Taiki and Tsukino Sayo hadn't become friends by doing what was easy. She remembered that much.

"Yep," she said, even though she wasn't. "Let's go get this over with."

When they were out of sight, she hugged him.


	3. I: Chapter 3

_Warnings: Body horror (non-graphic), humanoid characters, cessations, cursing, depression, implied child abuse_

* * *

 **Chapter Three: In the Eyes of Dragons, Everything Is Clear**

" _Everyone assumes kindness is something you just have, that good people are born good and evil are born evil and the lines blur with tears and magic. It's not true. We have to fight to be good. Earth decided that we were all evil. And every kid who wasn't born or made up here or in the data world has a mark on their right shoulder, adults too. Everyone knows what it means to be branded."_

The Platinum Tamer shelter – there really was no other way to describe it – spread out around her. The walls were covered in intricate rugs of warm colors and spiraling patterns. The floor in contrast with a soft cream color.

If they were trying to soothe your eyes away from the unusual machinery, they were failing.

"Present your weapons and your DIgivice," ordered a guard as they approached, the woman's cap brim pulled low over her eyes.

Taiki looked up and Sayo watched him try very hard not to roll his eyes. "Charlie, I don't _ever_ carry regular weapons, you know that."

"Standard procedure," the young woman replied, tipping her hat up and letting her full, dark curls roll over her studded ears. She seemed to be fighting a smirk. "Just do it, Taiki. I don't care how tough you are, fairy dust, I can still put a cap in you the same as dad."

Taiki snorted, resisting the habitual urge to say 'it's not fairy dust' of most Light Fang as he did what he was told. Charlie lowered amber eyes to Sayo's height. Sayo looked away by reflex before removing her Digivice from its holster on her belt. Then she took off her goggles and the quarterstaff closed in her pocket. Finally, she reached to her neck.

"What, no knives in your boots?" Charlie's deadpan (which was likely also perfectly serious) remark was met with purple candle wax eyes.

"These boots are made for walking, not bad storage. They're inconvenient." She clasped the chain of the pendant about her neck. It was shaped like a miniature blade, the sapphire gem set in the top and glimmering in the lights. "Titrel," she said to the little pendant. "No fuss."

The small blue gem flashed once and a mechanical voice chirped. _'If I have to, buddy.'_

Sayo nodded to it. "It's just for a while." she placed it with the others and then looked patiently up at Charlie. The woman chuckled, apparently _not_ bothered by a tiny talking blade on a necklace. Then again, Taiki _did_ have a pin that doubled as a spear.

"All right, go ahead, I guess. Leave your stuff here, newbie."

Taiki shook his head as he put his own device back on his belt. "I'm pretty sure our boss could knock us all out with the back of her hands," he mused. "Come on. She might be interested in making you do a strip search."

Sayo's face burned, but not nearly as bad as Charlie's. Taiki shook his head at her, unamused. "Aim for her face, not her chest," he advised, offering Sayo his arm and leading her away.

"This is going to be my life, isn't it?" she muttered, twining a purple lock of hair around dark, petite fingers.

Taiki shook his head with exasperation. "Probably," he admitted. "Might be good to consider dating on your break. Get you out of the house… admittedly to be stared at but I don't think you're going to win on that one."

Sayo shook her head. "Body doesn't say much."

"There are like, biologists who would be dumb enough to say it says a whole one-sided conversation," Taiki mused and that got a genuine laugh out of her again. "I was being serious!" His shoulders hunched up, messy hair almost spiking up further.

"Mmhm," she said, releasing his arm. "Taiki is always serious."

He scoffed at her before glancing down the halls. "We're down this way," Taiki said, expression turning sober. Sayo nodded, expression growing a little curious now. If she was never going to be here again, might as well see the sights. She looked about, noting fading graffiti on some steel walls, a few tiny handprints that just seemed to be refusing to come off, dents the shape of of knife butts and burns spread out across the ceiling. "This place is familiar," she finally said, looking up towards the ceiling now.

Taiki blinked. Those weren't words he heard from her very often. "It's possible you came up here with your dad a couple of times. Unless you were hospitalized here after you ran off to Magnet Mine that one time."

Sayo frowned. "I guess so." She still wasn't entirely sure to this day how she had gotten from her house in residential to the Digital World, to Magnet Mine, and then deep enough she had to be dragged out kicking and screaming and biting. That whole thing just remained a blur.

Taiki stopped at the end of one hallway. "All right, this is the room." He pointed around the corner. "Head straight down here until you get to the end of the hall. You'll be meeting Lady Tiamat up there."

Sayo blinked. "You aren't coming with?" Not that she expected him to but still. It would have been nice, she supposed.

Taiki shook his head. "Not allowed until the briefing's done. I'm going to go cover some ground instead, see if I can catch anything on that rumor. I'll be in there once I get clearance."

Sayo nodded, a bobbing of the head. "Okay. I'll see you." Her lips were still set in that blank line. Taiki reached out and patted her head. Before she would have bitten it. Now she just looked at him, purple eyes big and failing to be imposing.

Taiki smiled. "Just be honest."

Sayo nodded. "It's what I'm good at."

They parted and Sayo hurried onward. Well, not hurried. She just walked. There was no hurry, only a sense of welcome that she would finally get to stop for a while.

* * *

"Reload, Vio!"

Taiki blinked the light from his eyes as the cat hopped out of his Xros Loader. "You called, Taiki?" She yawned, scratching one orange ear with a white paw. "I was enjoying that though..."

Taiki couldn't help his smile. He knew Vio did that just because she could. "Yeah. Any clue if I can contact my sister yet? You said Shoutmon had seen her not too long ago."

At once, the Meicoomon's droopy eyes snapped open all the way. "I..." Vio hesitated, shifting on her back paws. "Probably? She's still making the connection from there to here but I _think_ we could try." She made a face, big eyes narrowing. "Why? She can't help you with that girl's trial, that's a bit mundane."

Taiki huffed at her. "I know that. Can't I miss my sister? It's been what, centuries over there by now?"

Vio grunted. "Yeah but that didn't stop you before."

"She said not to look for her." Taiki sighed. "And when she doesn't want to be found, she won't be found. That's how she's operated all the time. So… think you can?"

Vio huffed. "I can try, I guess." She shut her eyes entirely and focused on the door. Leaving her to it for a moment, Taiki went over to the nearest door.

His sister definitely couldn't help with this beyond data gathering (which might be useful) but what he actually needed was some distraction so he could do something without immediately getting into trouble. After all, one never knew if and when they needed a back exit. He closed his eyes and set to work.

When he had finished, leaving an almost unnoticeable blue light where his hands had been, he felt Vio's claws sinking into his shoulder. He grimaced and turned around. "What happened?"

Vio gestured and Taiki turned to see a young woman with short brown hair and a Tailmon sitting on her shoulder. Its tail lashed with annoyance as the human smiled a bit, looking shy.

"Hello," Taiki said, stepping back a little without thinking. He wasn't going to enjoy ramming a possible young tamer to the floor, but he certainly knew that he could. "Can I help you?"

She nodded slowly. "You are… Kudo Taiki-san, right?"

"That's right?"

She nodded again, too fast. "Yes, well, I … My name is Yagami Hikari. Your sister sent me here. She said you could help me, us?"

"My sister did." HE repeated this slowly just in case. Everyone knew he had a sibling (or a few,), but no one knew her name.

"Um… Mirei-san. She said you could help me." Hikari lifted something out of her pocket.

Taiki wanted to throw up. An old Chosen was up here. An old Chosen, Digivice and all, chosen by his adoptive parents, was up here. An old Chosen likely accepted by his sister as a guardian and who looked like the description of the mysterious eighth child, was standing on CITY shelter property.

Earth was screwed.

* * *

The halls were very quiet, to the point even her shoes weren't making much noise. Perhaps everyone was on missions or watching her slink across the way like the criminal she was.

 _Forward_ , Alec's voice reminded her in a soft twist of a memory. She nodded, almost in something resembling a jab of her chin, before straightening and moving on.

The room she entered was spacious and for a moment baffled her eyes because no room could look this big but she could almost see the actual wall in mind. Four large teleportation pads were surrounded by small fences, each glowing with a low humming light. In front of a fifth, center podium stood a tall woman, breaking six feet the same way children learned to break wooden boards in karate class with their fingers. She turned at once, too-big sleeves and swishing kimono fabric doing nothing to distract from the-

Pain.

Ran amock in her for a moment as she thought she saw twelve eyes and golden scales, her mind's eye visualizing great impenetrable claws as they sank down and-

Warm, honey brown fingers, darker than her face by the slightest tint, touched her cheek. Sayo scrambled backwards. When had she gotten across the room? The woman smiled.

"Ah." Her pure white teeth almost glowed in the light. "You are one of mine."

"One of yours?" Sayo's mouth felt as heavy as an iron ball. "I… I have parents, and all… birth certificate and everything."

The woman laughed. "No, no. I am Tiamat, Mother of Chaos. I'm your… mother's? Yes, likely the mother." She paused and every movement of her arms made the sleeves shift. "I am your ancestor, simply put."

"… And you're still alive?!" Open mouth, insert foot. Choke.

Another laugh. But this one made Sayo's ears twitch. "Indeed I am. I have a long life, possibly an eternal one. We shall see yet. But, well, we aren't here to talk about that." She waved her left sleeve and a screen formed in the air. "We're here to talk about you, I'm afraid." The screen burst a bright blue, revealing the twisted picture of her at the age of twelve and data about herself that she couldn't even read. "And your offenses."

Sayo let her face fall, but the sick roiling feeling from right after the event was gone, replaced with a familiar hollow in her stomach. The movement of her tail at her back as it fluffed up further in emotional disarray did not help. "Right..." She cleared her throat. "Please tell me when to start."

It was just going to be like ripping off a band-aid. Then she would get to sleep. It wouldn't change the present, but she didn't know jack about the future.

Sayo didn't exactly have one in mind.

When she stopped for a sip of water (a bottle of which had just magically appeared, she wanted whatever did that to feed hr DigiFarms), Tiamat smiled softly, the light of the room almost majestically washing over her. "Do you know if the Chrono Data is still floating around? It never reached this area, so I'm afraid our information is somewhat limited."

Sayo stared up at the woman, watching her face for extra thoughts, extra desires. Maybe it was just the feeling of knowing she was the equivalent of a Holy Beast in human form, but it was a very distinct 'mom' vibe. She didn't really like it, to be honest. But this was her superior, so… "No, I don't think so, anymore." she said, distinctly aware of the floating Chrono Core deciding it was a good idea to hide behind her. "At least, not very effectively beyond the damage that was already done. In CITY the effects of all the hits have caused Digital to become marginally less organic, but I'm not a scientist, so I don't know the details."

Granted, _Koh_ knew the details, but it was only natural. They had to put him on something when Yuki wasn't in his care, no matter how often that was.

Keiichi shifted behind her, small fingers passing through her back. She did not shiver. She was caught in the spell of the situation. After a moment, the spell broke and the woman stepped back with a smile.

"I see." Tiamat offered Sayo a sheepish smile. "I suppose I should have expected that. This isn't your recognized field."

"Ma'am I can barely read and write in Japanese." Just saying that made her cheeks color. It was so embarrassing.

Tiamat chuckled. "Truth be told, I'm not much better. At any rate-" She clapped her hands together and a solemn look passed over her face. "Tell me about the demon lords and what happened to your partner."

Sayo swallowed. Partner, because in all of those fights, she and Luna had gone alone. It was supposed to be a team mission but she had refused without hesitation. She had wanted to be alone, alone in the weight of the sins and the darkness and everything about that. There weren't enough Platinum Tamers from other side that were free anyway. She was the best Gold they had that wasn't Raigo or Litton. Both had to turn the mission down anyway. Much bigger missions awaited them.

"They weren't Demon Lords, ma'am," she finally said, chewing on her bottom lip. "Not entirely. They were like: images, after images or something. At least, as far as I could tell. I mean… the Rank tests have us face a fallen Lucemon and that one seemed a little weak compared to his so..."

Tiamat frowned and Sayo tensed up, prepared to jump for the door as only a rabbit could. Then she let out a large breath. "I see… that bodes troubling. Continue, please." The red eyes were narrowly scanning the room, regarding the other four portals as if they would leap to life again.

If those were where the Holy Beasts tended to make reports, Sayo had to doubt it.

She made herself continue. "So, Chief Julia asked me to examine some weird events in Chaos Brain, where the Chrono Core had once been active. So Luna and I went to see what was going on." She rubbed her eyes before things got serious. Crying during a report was not allowed. Ever. She went quiet, trying to sum up the words to explain just what had happened. Then, with a grimace, she pulled off her jacket.

"Ma'am, have you ever done a boss rush in a video game?" she asked. "Or a fight where you're hopelessly outnumbered and there's nothing you can do bu fight them off?" At a cautious nod of yes, Sayo continued. "That was what it was. A bunch of ghost of really powerful demons, vying to eat us, to kill us. I think if Luna had been even the tiniest bit bigger, we would have both been killed. As it was, the more we fought…" She began to lift the tank top over her head and hat. "The more pain flowed into my back."

The room vanished around her now as Sayo remembered-

"The more they touched me, the more they whispered, the more I just wanted to cut through them and I did and I did and they cut me right back until this thing was there. And I-"

 _Fell. I toppled off Luna's shoulder like a drunken ostrich and everything hurt. Everything hurt including my Soul and it was draining dry like the Chrono Core was back and badder than ever and only had its attention on me. But it was at home so that definitely wasn't it. She caught me and almost dropped me because she was starting to shudder. Form was cracking, the faces on her legs turning into fragile marble piles and she groaned._

" _We should go," I tried to say because now I was spitting red, literally._

 _She scowled at the floor and went forward because disobeying was her favorite bad thing to do. These monsters were Viruses, true blue cold and evil ones, which was pretty rare these days. But that was what these were. I yelled at her to come back, that her little Data shielding wouldn't be enough._

 _But Luna never listened, not when I started getting hurt. I probably ought to have remembered that and called her back into the digivice. I even had a gatedisk prepared. I grabbed Titrel, my sword, prepared to let loose-_

 _Then I'm pretty sure I blacked out. Cause I had to open my eyes and I could see through Luna and I was pretty sure that hadn't happened in the span of me blinking. I was sure enough as sure could get that I ran forward and cut down a giant wraith dragon black as pitch and covered in weird ass seals and Titrel glowed and-_

 _I hit the ground and rolled over, pain sealing me to the floor._

"There was a lot of whispering right then. All in my head" Sayo paused to take a sip of water. "Whispering the size of this room, all saying every edgelord thing a teen's brain could think of, except you could tell they were serious and it was all flooding into my head and back and well-"

Sayo laughed. She didn't believe that she had at first, but judging by the slight widening of the Platinum commander's eyes, she must have, and very loudly. She laughed again, more in control of it this time. "Luna's not a gentle Digimon, ya know. Her life was bad and weird so she couldn't be. But with me, she was always real gentle. So… the pain it kept growing, growing, running through me. But she hugged me, pulled me off the ground and nothing stopped. She turned me away so I, so I couldn't see… and so I couldn't stop whatever it was and-"

Keiichi's fingers passed through her skin, tracing the bone tattooed over her skin and the markings of the door and the skull lodged deep withing her backside, sliced and burned in like a tattoo drawn with a smoking poker.

"I heard her. I heard her say something and then." Sayo pulled her clothes back on to hide her tears, or to try anyway. "And she was gone. Like she was never there. There was no record of her in my Digivice or anything. But-" She made herself look at Tiamat. "I know she was there. She was a damn Olympus Twelve member. She was Artemis. She was real. Everyone of my Digimon know it."

Tiamat regarded her with clear concern and Sayo felt that age old urge to _spit_. She was crazy but she wasn't that crazy. The screen by one of Tiamat's hands scrolled with a flick of one clawed finger. When it slowed, Tiamat examined it thoughtfully.

"Are you certain your partner's name was Artemis?"

Sayo nodded slowly. "Was her old name. She hated me using it. So I didn't."

"I see..." Tiamat clicked her tongue, such a human gesture. "Well, you see child, that's quite a problem. The only Lunamon we have that could be of that line, of the Olympus Twelve, her name is Nyx. And she's not connected to you in the slightest."

Sayo only stared, helplessly at a loss. Then she laughed herself to tears.

* * *

When Julia, six months pregnant at the time, had lightly suggested buying one of those leashes for children that were sold in a few places in Digital, Tsukino Shinta had adamantly refused and not spoken to his wife for two hours, not even to rub the kicking spots of their too eager child.

Now, just over two years later, he was starting to regret that decision. Darja, though he loved her to death, was _nigh-unstoppable._ No wonder his sister had been so exhausted in her saner moments, and she had had twin toddlers once upon a time.

As he thought those words, he heard his daughter's feet stomp out of immediate reach again, heading what was likely towards the nearest cotton candy stall (the portal residence area was the closest thing to an airport that they had in city now that their resident ship was gone. Without thinking, he went after her, resisting the urge to scold her and hang her by her tail (he had had it done to him, he knew exactly what it felt like) from the nearest streetlamp.

"Darja," he began, causing her to pause midstep. Not a lick of embarrassment to be found. "If you keep running off, you won't be able to meet Sayo, now will you?"

Darja's tail wagged at the sound of her cousin's name (he really didn't know how the girl was so attached to the idea of meeting his niece. It must have been through osmosis. Then, another thought passed through her brain and she began to wander again. Shinta hurried to scoop her up, only to nearly smack into a passing young woman. He smiled at her and her lips twitched, hair buns bouncing a little at the tilt of her head.

"Miss Fei," called a voice, the voice of what was probably one of the Tamer security guards. He needed to work on knowing them by name, especially since they had stopped dropping like flies since EDEN.

Shinta paused and then muttered a few Talosian curse words under his breath when he realized Darja had probably up and climbed a tall fountain in the seconds he had looked away. _That child is getting grounded when I find her._ Since apparently she wasn't going to listen when he was nice about it.

Thankfully it wasn't very hard to find a navy blue and white tail wagging in the midst of the crowd. Humanoid races tended to get their things and get going here. Not that he could blame them.

Shinta slowed his steps, stepping as quietly as possible to not alert his little girl. She wasn't really paying attention, babbling what words she was managing to say to something, or someone. When she was in reach, he leaped, scooping up the little girl. Darja squealed but to his surprise covered her mouth. As she did, he saw something shift out of the corner of his eye. The little thing, which now that he smelled right was _filthy_ , squirmed further back into the little corner it had wedged itself into. He knelt, Darja squirming under one arm with clear delight.

"Hello there, little one," he said softly. "What are you doing back there?"

No answer, but there was a squinting pair of eyes peering at him. Not even away, right at him.

"Was my little girl being a bother?"

Fwip, fwip. The movement of hair.

"Good!" Shinta smiled. "What do you say you get on out of there, hmm?"

The child twitched, as if wanting to. But then Darja screeched, and the twitching hand scooted back. Shinta wanted to sigh but then he turned his head and saw just who Darja was reaching for.

His dear little niece.

Put bluntly, she looked awful. Even though she was cleaned up and her hair shone and her clothes lacked any of the old rips, the puffiness about her eyes and the set blank frown on her face… well. He knew that look very well.

Shinta put on a smile. "Lo, darling,"

"Lo," she mumbled.

Darja squealed and reached for her. Sayo stared at her and Shinta grinned a bit more. "Darja, darling. This is my daughter."

Sayo stared up at him, large eyes drooping a little. "I thought that had been a joke."

"No, it wasn't." He reached out, nervously, and patted her head. She shifted but didn't pull away. "Julia's a good woman once you pull the layers off."

"...Mm." Sayo grunted a bit before looking about. "Taiki's looking for you. You guys weren't at the entrance."

Shinta sighed. "Darja ran off, found this little one here."

He swore for a moment, that his niece's eyes sparkled at his words. She moved over. Shinta set Darja down warily, wanting both hands. Darja thankfully ran to grap Sayo's jacket. Sayo was knelt down at this point.

"Hullo," she said to the little child. "Ain't that place chilly?"

No answer.

Sayo nodded. "It is. And dark. Are you hungry?"

No answer.

Sayo nodded again. "Yeah. I'm a little hungry too. I like pancakes. Do you like pancakes?"

An answer. A shaken head.

"Why not?"

They coughed, a ragged little rattling sound. "Nnnn-"

Sayo blinked. "Never had pancakes."

The sound stopped, got a nod instead.

"You wanna try 'em?"

The little child nodded. Sayo leaned on her haunches, almost toppling Darja over and holding out one dark hand.

Grimy fingers touched hers and Sayo pulled what looked like a porcelain doll into her chest.

She looked up at Shinta, who tried to smile at that blank face.

"Yes," he said to her unspoken question. "Of course."

Sayo almost smiled.


	4. I: Chapter 4

_Warnings: Casual discussion of murder, fascism, poverty, and other things. Just 3k chapters, I said. It'll be fine, I said. Apparently not as we lean towards 4k again. Help me why did I do this to myself?_

* * *

 **Chapter Four: There's a Place You Can Occupy**

" _Digital is a bit fascist, you know. Cutthroat, hoarding. We're also flat broke and run by convicts and thirty-something year olds. It's rather problematic by default. I was alive during the gang wars. Or what might as well have been gangs. Two of my friends were on opposing sides for a while, but then they were forced to coexist. They're gone now. They disappeared. A lot of people have disappeared over the years. More died. And yet, we all don't hate each other anymore. We don't even hate the world down below, I think we're just afraid. We've had too many years to ourselves. It's too much to hope that Earth has forgotten us."_

Yagami Hikari took in her surroundings with no small amount of trepidation. People were looking at her and whispering for just long enough for Tailmon to glare at them and for her to squirm.

"Don't worry about them."

She glanced over at Taiki, who was looking out at the crowd, scanning in search of purple hair. That hadn't been her, right? That girl hadn't been that small girl from all those years ago who had looked half-starved and flinched at loud voices but still smiled like a dreamer? "Admittedly," he said, voice wry. "it's a bit difficult to ignore them. But you're pretty exciting. Two people from Earth in one day, and one a born Chosen to boot? You're going to be an interesting kind of celebrity for a while, sorry to say."

"That's really such a big deal here?" Even though Chosen were becoming more and more common at home as the years passed, even though Digimon were gaining partners more and more all the time (both a good and bad thing), her being up here carrying such a fuss didn't make much sense. Digimon were all over the place.

"The heroes of Earth have never been interfered with before." Taiki reached out and scratched his orange cat behind the ears as Vio lounged by his feet. He ignored the way Hikari eyed said cat with both curiosity and anxiety. He kind of understood. Meicoomon as a species were uncommon at best outside of Folder and some parts of Directory and, well… his was special anyway. "The common thread everyone's had is that the governments down there have you marked but they think you'll blow up every governmental organization they have."

Hikari couldn't contain the sound of her own amusement and fear now, letting out hoarse giggles that didn't sound forced enough to be fake but Taiki had made himself laugh before and he could easily recognize a bottled up sound. Then she wiped her eyes. Tailmon was climbing up to her shoulder again.

"Funny," she said when she had a modicum of voice. "That was exactly what they arrested me for, actually."

Taiki raised an eyebrow. "Did you actually do it?"

Hikari smiled at him, a gentle face that he knew from everyone here was the best lie in the business. "Almost. It was an accident though."

Taiki wanted to ask more, but he also wanted to preen a bit.

They had a chosen up here, an actual _Chosen Child,_ and they were somewhere on the line between okay and screwed up too.

 _Watch the dirt ball fall… look where it's going. Right where the fires burnt, right where people died._

He didn't mean to feel so satisfied, but it felt to him like everything was coming back around.

Taiki snapped himself up and looked to see two distinct purple blurs in the crowd. "There they are. C'mon. We have to get you set up with a lodging space and citizenship and I don't know how good you are with computers, but believe me when I say it's a lot faster to do it online."

Hikari blinked at him. "… Why, exactly?"

Taiki smiled. "Over ninety-five percent of our work is done online, because it's cheaper. Looks like you'll need some help with that."

Hikari was torn between telling this strange young man that she knew how to use a computer and being exasperated at the implication that somebody wouldn't.

Then she saw someone pull up a hologram in front of their fingers and promptly changed her mind.

Tailmon with all the sentiments of a cat, imitated her. She hissed at it instead.

Hikari tried very hard not to sweat drop, especially at her current guardian's beaming smile "You know," she said after a few moments of recovering from this. "I, I think you might be right."

"Sayo's pretty good with computers." He watched her reaction and she let him, her face falling like snow. "You know her?" That was pretty darn impossible. Chosen avoided Folder like the Black Plague was there. (Joke's on them, the Blackening Phenomenon was long gone.)

Hikari shook her head a little. "I thought I did."

They spent the rest of the wait in thoughtful silence.

...

"Uncle?"

Uncle Shinta readjusted his grip on his daughter, as he walked who as always was squirming to be put down. Therefore, he took a few seconds to respond. "Mm?"

Sayo had not let go of the child this whole time, nor had they let go of her. In fact, each slight jostle made their tiny, thin fingers grip harder. Not hard enough to hurt, after those fights with grandiose monsters and her own mother, Sayo doubted conventional terrified children could really cause her any damage, but she still gently touched their fingers to make them loosen up. The least they would do is hurt themselves and all. "Why has Darja kept trying to lick me?"

Shinta grunted out a long suffering noise. _"Danger."_

"Oh." That would do it. Danger Floof, her uncle's childishly named Dorumon who was older than Digital CITY dirt, had an extreme obsession with cleaning. With his tongue. It only made sense that he would cause that problem. Thankfully, Darja was barely two, and therefore failed at covering distance. She kept trying though, licking the air like a toddler possessed. It was a pretty silly response. Though it seemed more directed at the child in her arms. They weren't reacting, but Darja was a youngling. She wouldn't be that easily deterred.

It was cute, in its way.

"He's quite proud of himself," her uncle said dryly.

"Too bad Doru didn't take after him," Sayo said softly before she could stop herself.

Shinta either ignored it or didn't know how to disagree, as he said. "You would have had to get used to drool on your comforter."

Her nose wrinkled. It was the only thing she didn't miss about raising baby Digimon as they grew, specifically overenthusiastic baby Digimon. "True…"

"Effort to get it out of the sheets."

The child squirmed a bit. Sayo reflexively loosened her grip, intent on dropping the child to let them escape if they so desired. However, they merely adjusted themselves, well enough that Sayo could see the scarlet red paint through the dirt on their neck. Her eyes went wide.

"Uncle?" When he looked at her, much more quickly this time, Sayo's eyes were slightly frightened. "This is a Wisteria child." The young one tensed even as Shinta let out a swear word that Sayo only understood from her own Talosian heritage. "It's okay," she tried to say as the squirming continued. "I won't give you away, I won't. That just makes things harder, it's okay."

"Harder is an understatement." Shinta grimaced, observing the child settling once more at her tone, if not her words. A child had traveled all the way from Wisteria, from the equivalent of what Earth called a red-light district, only cleaner and regulated. There was a prostitute's kid in his niece's arms. "Any signs of a yellow or blue bracelet? Do they have a required Tamer?" The only way Union Tamers were allowed to have children was if they raised and looked after one once they became trainees. Sayo… simply put, never had before now. Yuki had required all of her help beforehand, learning how to work around sudden blindness, sudden new traumas, sudden everything after the Chrono Core.

" _There's none,"_ Said Keiichi told her, having been floating by her head. Sayo nodded a negative to answer. Shinta sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I'll contact Julia when we get some food. Won't do us any good until then and if there's none, we may be able to argue it as your community service." He waited for Sayo's obedient nod and quickly smiled. "Have faith in me, Sayo."

"I do."

Shinta said nothing to this, but merely inclined his head. It was safer than arguing. "We're going shopping tomorrow after I get back from Mass. You already have furniture but I thought… well, you would want to decorate."

"… Oh." Sayo made to scan the many flashing signs, too bright for her eyes. "That will be nice."

Shinta decided he would have to take that. She sounded much too tired for many more words.

…

" _We have nothing left these days, nothing that we didn't make ourselves. So it's the recyclables of never ending failure. Something will have to give eventually. As long as it's not all over for us, it should be fine, right? I'm so tired of wondering. I just want to be happy. I just want to not feel like this. But it's so easy to feel like this."_

In another world, one with harsher gravity and a significant lack of monsters, the sight of Sayo with that small, filthy child in a dining establishment would bring nothing but contempt and disgust, possibly even a shooing out.

At this little pancake place in the middle of the Ares District of Digital, however, no one batted an eye. It wasn't like the child was spreading fleas. No, they were spreading strawberry syrup on any soft fluffy goodness they could reach and stuffing their thin, dirty cheeks.

Honestly, haven't you seen weirder?

Sayo herself was eating eggs at a slow, contemplative pace. Taiki sat facing the window, scanning the passerby. She watched him a little, but mostly she watched Yagami Hikari and her Digimon. To be fair, she had good reason: the young woman wouldn't stop _looking at her._

And it wasn't for the reason most people looked at adult Talosians, which usually consisted of eventually crashing into various objects and tripping over themselves. There was something _heavy_ and foreign in that gaze, and it was even a bit nostalgic too.

Sayo, being herself, didn't ask. She simply went back to poking her food and occasionally eating it.

Shinta busied himself with his Digivice phone, one eye on her and it would have been infuriating if she wasn't just so done with it all. And if it wasn't her uncle.

Finally he looked away from it and smiled up at Sayo. "Success. They're all yours."

Sayo glanced at the dutifully eating child and nodded. "Catch?"

"They'll need a babysitter and you'll be taking remedial tutoring and job training." Shinta was quick to smile. "But the usual supplies, once their profile's been taken with their blood, should be at our door in the morning."

Sayo nodded a little. Then she turned to the little child. "You're coming home with us, if you want." The child looked at her and nodded, squinting slightly. Could they see? She would have to check. "We need a syringe."

"Julia will take care of it."

Sayo's expression twisted a little. "That's still weird, uncle. Hope you know."

"As _everyone_ has told me, yes." Shinta wiped Darja's face for what seemed like the fifth time. "That or I'm _hardcore_. She's a woman, a wonderful woman, but honestly, she's not an idol."

"I bet you worshipped her like one," Taiki muttered before he could stop himself.

Shinta stared at him in absolute offense. Then Sayo, to everyone's surprise, burst into giggles, dropping her silverware and rushing for a napkin. Taiki's cheeks flushed and he looked away, causing Shinta himself to let out a chuckle of his own. Hikari laughed before she could stop herself, hiding her mouth with her hand to contain herself. The child fidgeted, then kept on eating.

"Today is absolutely nuts," Sayo finally murmured, getting her giggles under control. She was glad Roni wasn't here; the child didn't need big rabbit-dog eyes all over their food.

Taiki mumbled an apology, ears a dark tint.

Eventually, the little one did get full, letting Shinta go and pay for their bill. Sayo sat and watched the outside, losing interest in Hikari. She watched the people mingle outside, eyes thoughtful and solemn.

What was she going to do now? Could she really just live on her commander and uncle's good graces? Be a shameless bum? No, if you weren't useful then you were better off being out of the way. At least, that was as far as she could tell.

She looked down at the child as they picked at the napkin and built a tower with the cream cups. She smiled a little. Yuki had done that the last time, the last time their father had taken them here. How long ago had that been?

Trying to remember only causes a headache. So she stopped and looked at the little thing beside her. "Do you have a name?" The kid should, there was only a superstition to not name your child if they were born with a cough or a sickness in the bones, and even then, they were named. To not name a child was to curse them to have no records, to be a part of the mass pyre without a record.

There was a quiet silence as the child took a sip of water.

"M' name's Frisk," he finally said. "'m good with m' fingers."

 _I'm a little thief._

"You need glasses, Frisk." Sayo said it without much importance. "We'll go to the mass clinic and they'll tell you. Just you wait."

Another pause. "Hate doctors. Smell funny."

"Hate 'em too," Sayo agreed. "But we need things we hate. I love my dad too. He's a nurse."

"Why?"

"I dunno how to get rid of fleas."

The child was staring at her, she could feel it. "Mm?"

Frisk didn't respond. Sayo let it go at the sound of a key being placed on a table. Shinta smiled at her and she scooted out. He knelt down to Frisk's eye level. "I'm gonna take you to get a pre-examination and some basics, if that's all right."

"You said tomorrow," Sayo interjected because she couldn't help herself and because Frisk's nose turned up like they wanted to swallow a lemon.

Shinta only smirked. " _You're_ tomorrow. This one only has the rags and let's face it, Helen will be much more friendly with you at home."

Sayo's face shuttered closed. Well, he wasn't wrong. Just because Anya -Annie, she had asked her to keep calling her Annie- had been responsible for her case until last year, didn't mean Helen offered any kindness. And she wouldn't. Fear ran deep. Besides, she hated the sheer amount of grime Frisk was likely going to track in. Better for her uncle to deal with that.

"Right..."

Taiki, thankfully, came to her rescue on the unspoken question. "I'll take you there. Shinta-san has already asked for set-up so Yagami-chan can stay here temporarily."

Hikari looked up in surprise, cheeks flushing pink. "Oh-oh no, I couldn't. I..."

"It's easier if you do." Shinta smiled wearily. "I doubt you have much money, or Bit, rather, and you don't want to be in debt within a week of being here. It's just not worthwhile."

Hikari shifted. "Bit?"

"You've probably heard it as Digidollars," Sayo mumbled, giving up and drawing on the table with a single finger. "That converts to BIT, otherwise known as bytes. Memory bytes. Usually it's in the form of money, but memory in a data based area can be considered a rare and valuable resource. It's why Tamers obtain data." At Hikari's clearly baffled (and now slightly uncomfortable) frown, Sayo exhaled and looked at Taiki. "You didn't tell her anything?"

"You seem raring to go," Taiki offered, leaving the tip.

Shinta continued to coax an uncomfortable Frisk forward, but eventually the dark fingers latched onto his pristine priestly robes to be put on the ground. He didn't seem inclined to stop them, rather only cocked his head in agreement. Sayo made a noise of discomfort. She was not Ms. Exposition, not about what was essentially Digimon cannibalism. It was the best way to make money. Bytes were what converted money to being transferred in the first place. Who actually kept money the traditional way anymore? They had accounts and things.

Darja, seeing an opening as all two year olds do, proceeded to totter over to her legs and clinging hard.

"Trade you." Shinta didn't even hesitate to grin now.

Sayo wanted to grimace. The child would not stop licking once she got her opening. Well… her face softened and she picked up the tot, enjoying the brief squeals of innocent glee. Frisk's head tilted to the right. Then they shifted off the seat and over to Sayo's uncle. Sayo nodded a bit, letting Darja do what she wanted. Though, being two, she quickly got tired.

"I have no choice now," she said as the girl squirmed to get comfortable. "Oh well."

"Oh well," Shinta agreed. "You kids have fun."

Taiki just stared at him.

Sayo shrugged. She had no idea where to start with that one.

As her uncle and apparently new ward departed, Sayo turned to Hikari and sighed. "So… Bit?"

Hikari coughed, looking to hide her face in Tailmon's head. "I guess that would be a good place to start?"

Sayo gave Taiki a scowl, who lifted his hands in immediate defense. "I'll help I promise."

Sayo glared at him for a moment more. Then she relented. "Right. So. Bit, bytes, data, comes from the death of Digimon..."

"It what?!"

Taiki winced in sympathy. Oh was this going to be a long walk.

Sayo's eye twitched. "Yes. When Digimon die, their main data becomes an egg. But there's always extra data, or data that's lost in general. It tends to be scanned, that's how lots of tamers up here get a start. They make an egg. The rest becomes Bit, used for monetary purposes. Since it's data, it can be converted to Earth currency."

She is immensely grateful that Hikari doesn't ask, but why would you _kill Digimon at all?_ Because ask a stupid question, get a snide answer.

What she does ask is "How did you guys find that out?"

"Trial and error," Taiki replied. "It was an unlucky accident."

Hikari looked about, Tailmon hopping to her head to do the same. "Everything here is data?! All of it?"

"Mostly." Sayo ignored someone who went to take a look at her neckline, leaving Taiki to give them some sort of look that struck terror in the hearts of men. "We're still somewhat organic, or you wouldn't have any blood." She took the pin from her hair (why did she have that when she had a hat? Reasons.) and pricked her finger. A single drop of blood rolled down her pinkie. "You can bleed in the Digital World too, but that's because it's not an entire world of inorganic data. Anyway, we're data enough that most things can be teleported."

"And now we can grow Digital World plants, finally." Taiki shuddered. "No more flying in cows."

"They stopped doing that five years ago." Sayo watched Hikari turn pale. "Yeah we have a food shortage. You're going to need a garden permit. And to learn how to barter. Hope you like fish."

"I do!" Tailmon sounded a little too enthusiastic. Hikari managed to nod.

"Good. You're learning how to fish." Taiki sounded a little too gleeful at what he was going to do for this poor girl.

Sayo shot her a sympathetic twitch of the mouth, adjusting Darja in her arms. At least the child wasn't heavy-

Thud.

That was the normal sound people made when they crashed into a Talosian. Thud and ow. The guy did the first one, but went right past without the second one. Instead, something clanged to the ground, a tiny sack that was probably used for a bag of Scrabble tiles. It sounded like one too. Sayo picked it up and turned-

"Hey… you dropped-!"

There was no one there.

She looked back at the other two. "You… you saw that right?"

Hikari nodded. Taiki did the same.

Sayo picked up the small pouch and frowned at its weight. Darja whined at all the movement. "Well..." she managed to say. "I guess I'm not imagining things, at least."


	5. I: Chapter 5

_Notes: effects of ptsd (everyone remember it manifests differently for everyone), depression, transgender character (I assume this doesn't actually need a warning but I figure I should note one is there.), reminder there are non-human humanoid characters in this, possible other fic spoilers._

* * *

 **Chapter Five: There's a Person Underneath That Armor**

" _Do strong people always wonder if they're weak? Do the strong have a hard time smiling? I've always figured they do and smile anyway because if people don't smile, something is wrong. When gorillas smile, dad says, something is wrong. It must be the same with monsters too."_

A commander's apartment should be spartan, decorative in the loyalty of their army, devoted to the cause. Sayo, having been to her commander's apartment way more times than was necessary, knew that was a lie. If her chief wanted to, it would be decorated like a proper Tamer Home, an island in the middle of these formerly expensive high-rises. However, the woman had once admitted she had lost her love for islands and seas in her adolescence, so she preferred an imaginary sort of normalcy.

Therefore, tired of talking, Sayo still wasn't surprised to open the woman's door and be greeted by six different cats and two litters of kittens.

She _was_ mildly surprised to hear Hikari squeak behind her, cutting off the next question for at least a few seconds. Thankfully. She had enough questions for a textbook, and most of them were actually about things she knew about. Joy.

Darja shifted sleepily, causing Sayo to look down. The girl had left a gleeful wet spot of drool on the collar of her shirt not more than ten minutes ago. Now she looked for all the world like a tired toddler.

"Cute," Taiki said to her, waving at the cats. They all gave him their routine hissing noise at him and like a furry hive mind, scooted away from him. Sayo tried to glare at him, but only succeeding at looking embarrassed. He winked at her. "Well, I've successfully managed to get you home safely, stuff and all, so I think I'll head home. I'll come back tomorrow afternoon to help Yagami-san over here. Set up her own place and everything. Is it all right with you?" He looked at Hikari herself as he said this last part.

Hikari's face colored with concern. "I… I couldn't impose on her family like that!" It seemed that the realization of what was going on had just occurred to her.

"Impose away," Sayo replied with a small shrug. "You'd be better company than I am. Plus, a commander of our military force lives here. She could help you as well." Her eyes went to Tailmon, who lashed her tail right back. "Theoretically." She shrugged and hefted up Darja once more. "Make up your mind though, this little kid is heavy."

"She can't be that heavy," Taiki said with a laugh. "Does she eat cat _and_ people food?"

"Probably," Sayo said, watching the girl's nose scrunch. "She knows we're talking about her."

"Self-assured too," Taiki said. He looked over at Hikari, who fidgeted awkwardly between the two of them. "There's a shelter a train ride away. I could take you there if it would make you feel better."

They both watched Hikari war with good manners and common sense. Sayo thought it would be cute if she didn't look genuinely upset by it. Then she exhaled. "I… If you don't mind having me."

"We don't." This response came from the opening door and slightly above Sayo's head.

Taiki saluted the woman with two fingers as she opened the door and Sayo nodded her head, still burdened with sleeping toddler. "Ello Chief."

"The one time the pair of you stand on ceremony," the woman said dryly, holding out her hands. With no small amount of relief, Sayo handed Darja to her mother, who whined at the loss until her face was buried into her parent's neck. The woman looked over to Hikari, who suddenly felt a pressing urge to duck.

"This is a delayed welcome, and possibly unwanted, but I welcome you to Digital CITY." Her voice took on a crisp, blunt tone. "I'm going to assume, Yagami Hikari, unlike our other recent entry, that you were not sent here by order of the government for something minor in the grand scheme of things."

Hikari blinked again, fingers resting on her jacket pocket. "I… I'm sorry?"

"Our Chief gets right to the point," Sayo supplied, removing her hat and beginning to take off her shoes despite still being outside. "She basically wants proof you didn't try to sneak up here, though why you would is up for debate."

Hikari moved to pet Tailmon, looking down at her dirty white shoes, basically grey in color. Now that Sayo was really looking, all of her clothes looked to be staying on her body out of sheer stubbornness. "That's… completely strange."

"I am strange," the chief replied, stepping back to let them in. "It makes me feel better. So, bluntly stated, what brings you here now, of all times?" She paused. "Go home, Kudo," she added with a snort. "Before I hear from your father we're overworking you."

Taiki's expression twisted with reluctance. He had been _interested_ in the goings-on for a second there. However, he turned and waved good night, walking away. Hikari wanted to be angry about how quickly he was cowed, but the way Sayo watched the woman made her heart slow in her chest a little.

"Come on Julia." Her voice sounded exhausted. "She just got here. I mean, she's gotta be here for something important, but can we let her get a bed first?"

'Julia's' lips twitched. "Oh? Is my little ball of fury becoming aware?"

"Oh shove it." Sayo's olive cheeks darkened further, lips scrunching into an embarrassed pout. Hikari couldn't help but stare with fascination at the _expressiveness_ there, unlike when she had first seen the other girl in- no, don't think of that- and encountered someone with such a blank face that it hurt. "She just got here like, three hours ago. She'll have to be interrogated by someone _anyway._ I don't think she's a mole in a plot to destroy the city. She'd have come through the door if so, right?"

Julia raised an eyebrow. "I suppose so, but she does need to understand the situation in full, as I presume she did not before now."

"I-" Hikari hesitated. She had been warned many, many times in battle to keep some cards close to your chest. And this was a battle of some kind wasn't it? Of willpower or something? But something had to give. "I know about this place. In the past, I've met people from here."

Julia smirked like the cat who had caught the canary. Tailmon bristled at the prospect. "So you see why this is so baffling to us, right? Your group has never been brought here before in any sense. So, if I may ask, why you?"

Hikari's face flickered through thoughts so fast Sayo was surprised her eyes didn't blur. Then, she looked Julia right in the eye and said, "I told the government officials trying to arrest me that if they went after my family and friends I would cause the world to end again, and that was a very bad idea."

For some reason, Sayo found herself grinning. Julia looked quite amused herself. "That, my dear, is an interesting answer." Her serious expression suddenly eased, particularly at the shifting Darja on her chest. "Now, let's get inside, Sayo can show you how to fill out the citizenship paperwork, considering she might as well start her own."

Sayo didn't even protest, barring a low grumble of, "I hate writing."

"So do I but the audio software still picks up our curse words."

Hikari giggled at the disgruntled look on Sayo's face. She couldn't help herself. It was so nice to see reactions from people, even if they weren't real.

Everyone was entitled to their secrets, including them.

Even as she walked inside, her free hand kept in her pocket, on the soft fake fur of her long-time companion. Tailmon brushed soothingly against her cheek, but Hikari did not relax. Not yet.

* * *

Hikari woke up in the middle of the night to screaming. Her fingers fastened around Jeanne's plush fur, she sprang out of bed. Natalia's ears were up as she caught her bearings in the dark. Crouched on the floor, Hikari listened for the telltale sounds of battle, for the screech of flame-

But the screaming only continued, until the sound of a child's cries joined it for a few moments of confusion. Right next to her, the screaming kept on until a door opened and then it was only muffled, held down by the whispers of adults and eventually, draining energy. The screaming turned to sobbing and cursing, spewed words of rage and pain and-

" _I'm sorry I'm sorry I was too slow I'm sorry this is because of me because I got proud I killed you I'm so sorry, where are you this is a dream you aren't here this is a_ dream _!"_

-regret.

Hikari eased back to sit on the floor, heart thumping in her chest too loudly still but not enough to not hear it eventually grow quiet, not enough to not hear the sounds of hiccups of pain until they faded away into hitches of breath. They might fade away to sleep, but it would take time. Like it had taken her time. Like it always took away things rather than gave them to you.

She heard the adults pacing outside, Darja's sniffles clear despite the closed door.

"That was faster than I expected." Julia's voice, barely shaken. She envied that all of a sudden, envied that world-weariness that meant that even the pain of children no longer broke her down to hear. "You said it would take you longer."

Shinta's voice however, was trembling. "Yes well, the little one clinging to her shirt helped immensely, as much of a problem as that was..." He cleared his throat. "It's been a long time since I heard her scream like that."

She had to guess Julia's hand was on his shoulder. "Shinta, you've seen what's been done to these children. All of them scream." Her gentle voice wasn't the normal kind of soothing, not exactly, but there was a low churr to it that worked in its own inhuman way. "For different reasons, at different monsters."

"It's different when it's yours," he replied. He sounded insistent, desperately so.

"It is."

Hikari turned over and rested her fingers on the soft plush on her pillow.

"Jeanne," she whispered, desperate to tune them out. "Raccoon. Wide Area Scan."

The plush was still a moment, then it rolled over on her pillow. About the size of a baby's first stuffed animal, the dog plush seemed like an overactive child's toy. Then it let out a quiet _wan_ sound of agreement, coaxing itself next to Tailmon in an attempt to hide the light washing from its frame. Natalia rolled her eyes at it but did not move.

It opened its mouth with another 'wan' sound. "No hostility detected. Threats have been managed."

Hikari rubbed Tailmon's head. "Thanks, Jeanne." She determinedly kept her voice low, trying to ignore the continued conversation outside. "Astrid search."

"Wan!" _The search will take time._

Hikari didn't mind that. She had time. She had too much of it, now. She laid back down with Tailmon curled against her chest and tried to sleep.

* * *

When she opened her eyes again, a grayish light was streaming in through the curtains. Outside was cloudy, bunching up in preparation for rain. Last night, she had been told that all seasons here were artificial to give earth humans a sense of normalcy and a way to grow crops. Digital World crops, as far as she knew, didn't seem to care but it was better to be safe than sorry. She picked herself up from the bed, with Jeanne in her pajama pocket. Julia had helpfully offered her some old ones, without mentioning whose they had been or why they were so well-cared for. Hikari knew better than to ask.

When she arrived out in the living room however with Tailmon in her arms (was it polite to use a Digimon's name? She needed to find that out.) she found Sayo already awake with someone else, hat nowhere to be seen and therefore with her ears _and_ her tail in full view of the occupants. They were facing opposite sides on the floor, a vaguely familiar board in between them. Even in the miserable morning light and with the pallor of her dark skin, Sayo somehow managed to look well, even with the sleeves of her clothes drooping over her fingers. She held a single black stone in one hand, not looking up.

The stranger did, however, smiling up at her through silver bangs that seemed unevenly cut. "Hello," they said, friendly enough. They were small, not in the same way Sayo was compact but more that they had been in some corner for too long and didn't know how to stretch their wings. "You must be Hikari-san."

"Does everyone know who she is but me?" Sayo muttered, placing a stone down. She, naturally, sounded exhausted. "Did I keep you up last night?"

Hikari felt her manners nearly throw her to the floor. "Oh! No, no, not really."

"Probably did." Sayo yawned. "Don't worry. You can be honest. Ryouma knows."

"I have to know," agreed the stranger and Hikari saw little Darja was actually peacefully in his lap. "Anything that keeps her quiet is a boon."

Sayo snorted. "Why did they hire you?"

"Hiring anyone else costs food." Ryouma laughed, pressing the lines of what appeared to be a weathered suit. "I can be paid in Bit and fabric." He smiled at Hikari once more. "Would you like to sit down? Shinta-san went out to get some more eggs. Because a carton isn't enough apparently."

"I think he's hiding something." Sayo placed another stone after he did. "He always tends to sneak out of the house when he's up to something. Probably doesn't want me to see the tutor he's hiring to correct my grammar."

Ryouma made a noise between a snigger and a giggle and Hikari felt her mouth twitch as she sat down beside them. "My grandmother tried to show me this game," she said after a moment, fishing for conversation.

Sayo glanced at her as Ryouma scanned the board. "Tried?"

Hikari made herself smile, trying not to shift at the feeling that gaze left on her, so wrong somehow. "I apparently threw up on the _goban_ *."

Ryouma had to cover his mouth to not wake the toddler, he was laughing so hard. Darja, however, whined at the trembling in his shoulders and how he moved his legs. She made a pouting face and worked to crawl away. He placed his stone and picked her up. "No," he told her, quite firmly considering the grin on his face. "I will get Danger in here. Do you want to be licked until you can't breathe?"

"Nu!" She replied with a beaming grin of her own.

"That's what I thought." He set her back down. "Now just watch me beat your cousin."

Sayo looked up at him and Hikari saw the flicker in her eyes, the violet fire that would promise retribution. _"Excuse you."_

Ryouma snickered at that, clearly used to half-human. "If you can get back half your territory in six moves, you're a whole different kind of wonder."

She glared at him and proceeded to do just that.

It only made Ryouma laugh harder. Hikari had to giggle too, especially at the smug look of triumph on the other's face, cheeks flushed with victory.

"Noisy," a voice interrupted from the edge of the living room.

All of them looked up and Sayo smiled. It was a flimsy, cajoling look that reminded people this was a fragile child coming into the room and that all but one were probably of the same cloth. "Morning, Frisk."

Frisk squinted at them, literally. The poor thing likely needed glasses. They looked a bit like a drowned rat, too thin, but pleasantly washed and with a comb and brush having turned their hair to lay so flat it looked like wet pasta. They didn't look any better than they had the night before, except only cleaner, only with a real meal in their belly. They were disheveled, but a safer kind.

Hikari watched the child's mouth twitch, mouth words. "… Hello."

Darja squeaked at them and they flinched for a moment. Then they relaxed. "Breakfast?"

"Soon," Ryouma replied breezily. "Nice to meet you, Frisk." He began clearing the board.

Sayo hopped to her feet, coming over to him in near silent steps with a swish of her tail. Hikari watched Darja follow it in fascination. "How are you feeling buddy?"

"Tired." Go-to response. Hikari saw Sayo's face shutter for a moment, but then she smiled.

"I woke you up so that's natural." She reached out and slowly touched the child on the cheek. They quivered but did not move away. "Wanna watch me beat this guy in another game of Go?"

"You pulled a lucky break," Ryouma protested, raising an eyebrow so high it should have ended up in the atmosphere.

Sayo smirked at him and waggled a finger. "You dared me."

The look on his face in reply was positively demonic. He grabbed a fistful of stones. "Count."

Frisk, puzzled, went to sit next to Hikari. Hikari tried to pretend it wasn't weird. Then, the game was on.

* * *

By the time Shinta returned nearly an hour later with Julia in tow, Darja had managed to seat herself on Hikari. Not to mention that Sayo had fallen asleep sitting up. Ryouma reached over and swept a slender hand under her nose. She let out a snort and started awake, looking up at her family with likely the same bafflement that was currently fueling all of Hikari's existence.

"Morning."

Shinta's face went tight for a moment before it eased, stepping inside with bags in hand. "Good morning all of you. I didn't expect you here until ten, Ryouma-kun."

Ryouma smiled earnestly up at him. "Akari-kun woke us up rushing to get to work. We had to help her so by the time that was done, I was awake. And Sayo let me in. Taiki-san had morning class or he'd be around too."

Hikari saw Sayo raise an eyebrow and Hikari twitched, listening to her native language with some possibly undue fascination. There was so much social commentary in every word… and it was none of her business.

Sayo looked at her suddenly. "Are you having trouble understanding us?"

Hikari frowned. "Should I?"

Julia shut the door behind her, obedient to her daughter's squeaking toddle. As she scooped her up, she replied. "Digivices emit a translation wave the more data is around them. It works less well in the human world for example because there is less ambient data but here and the Digital World it's possible." She gave Darja a nose tweak and earned an irritable huff. "A good portion of people here are Japanese, but there's a mix of everyone who walks through these walls. A common language had to be formed to do so until the digivice picked up on what we were all saying. So that's what Sayo is referring to."

"Oh..." Hikari flushed. "Well, I haven't had any trouble so far." She brushed Tailmon's fur. Her flush darkened when her stomach grumbled.

Darja giggled at the sound until letting out a whine of hunger.

Shinta laughed, and the shadows lining his face faded away. "Then I suppose I'd better get started."

Hikari raised her hand. "I can help."

Sayo stretched. "Same. I know how to cook."

Shinta raised an eyebrow. "Yagami is a guest, and _you_ , Sayo, are supposed to be taking it easy-"

"Cooking is easy-" Sayo interrupted.

"And finishing your paperwork." Shinta finished with a smirk.

Ryouma laughed at the look on her face. Hikari hid her smile under her hand.

"It's okay," she said, managing to smile at Sayo and mean it. "I need help with mine anyway."

Sayo stared at her for a moment. Then she shrugged as if the entire reason she had thought about helping had left her. "Sure. You're right. Let's do it before our hands cramp."

Hikari smiled it off.

"Tutor is supposed to be here at one," Shinta called as Sayo marched away. She made a face where he couldn't see.

Hikari frowned. "Will I need tutoring?" She hadn't even graduated middle school after all, and in Japan, that had been a legal requirement.

Sayo glanced at her and shrugged again. "Depends on how you do on the qualification test. I've never been to school so I can't say."

"Are the schools here… bad?" If she was going to be living here for the foreseeable future, she'd likely need to enroll.

Sayo chewed her lip. "My little sister went until recently. She liked them. They're pretty open-minded. You'll just be a celebrity."

"Oh..." She hadn't thought of that. Hikari was starting to regret letting Mirei manipulate her into something. Again.

They settled in the office room on the sofa. It was freshly cleaned and the cushions replaced. Sayo shut the door behind them and sat down. The pendant around her neck flashed in the blinds. She pressed her fingers to it and then looked at her.

"Pull it out."

Hikari blanched and Tailmon opened her eyes as if she had only been pretending to sleep. "I'm… sorry?"

Sayo tapped her pendant, which flashed on its own a pale blue. "You've got one, right? A weapon?"

Hikari stepped back towards the door. "I don't..."

"I don't remember you." Sayo kept her voice calm. "Everyone else knows who you are. But I remember someone with a powerful light, very far in the back of my mind. And last night, when I was falling asleep, I felt magic just like that. Are you that person, or aren't you? Why are you here?"

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ It's hereeeee~ Another _Stars_ update and now is when I get to dance around _Simple Math_ and its sequel spoilers. Whoops! Oh well, most of it doesn't pertain to Stars so we're fine. Also apparently for this story I have to write the first line, not touch it for months, and then write it for two days straight. That's absurd. Oh well, I guess. But anyway, we're here now! Enjoy and please leave a review! I don't write these 3k chapters for health reasons. Also if this gets another update, it's all _Hacker's Memory's_ fault.


	6. I: Chapter 6

_Warnings: Depression, memory loss_

* * *

 **Chapter Six: Slippery Slopes of Ice and Fire**

" _I hate being paranoid. I hate it because it's usually right and there's something under the surface. The problem is that it usually has nothing to do with me. I wish it did. Then my self-centered behavior would actually make a lick of sense."_

Sayo could almost smell the emotions wafting off of Hikari right now. The nerves, the uncertainty, the actual form of sentences. She appreciated that. That meant this silence wasn't born from how much she wanted to lie, but how much she felt safe saying.

Considering her many dealings with Kowloon Co in the past couple of years, she'd had to learn the difference. Learning sucked, honestly.

Sayo, therefore, waited for an answer. Seeing as Hikari wasn't throwing things at her, she could afford to wait.

Finally, Hikari threaded her fingers into Tailmon's fur and said, "We met once, when we were younger." She waited for the surprise, but Sayo gave away none. She was trained better than that and too tired to try. "You and your friends tried to help us take care of a problem. It was training, you said. You all were supposed to go to Snow Zone. I had no idea where that was or what that was. But we had a picnic together." She swallowed. "You all had never had clementines before. You even tried to fly with the picnic blanket."

Sayo frowned pensively, playing with Titrel's chain. The other young woman's words struck her, rather like a chord or something like one. "Fly?" She latched onto that thought, that significant thing that didn't make sense. She couldn't fly now after all. "I could fly."

Hikari nodded. "Yeah. You never explained how it worked or anything. You all just could. Like Peter Pan, I guess. I had to learn. " Sayo only blinked, at a loss. "You don't know who Peter Pan is?" Sayo shook her head and a pang went through Hikari's chest. She tried to smile it off. Sayo knew that expression too, though. That was the look of someone who had to hold something else back, tamp down on the truth because they didn't know what she would do, like the animal she was.

"Show me your weapon," she said instead, because that was what she had wanted in the first place. Never mind the last year of longing that didn't belong to her as she had tried to remember what was so important, as she tried to remember the past everyone was afraid of her knowing. That she tried to remember something beyond needles and a man's gloved hand and his pity telling her something, something really, really important before being dragged away by Spencer Daimon and someone else telling her he was completely wrong and that wouldn't happen and he wouldn't let it.

 _(And that he would protect her and keep her safe, whoever he was was a liar and bad things happened to him to make him go away forever and honestly she wasn't sure if she cared or not no matter how much he meant to her and vice versa, because if she had meant anything he wouldn't have made such an idealistic promise)_

She needed to pay Spencer a visit, come to think of it. He might have some answers and unlike her uncle, he would at least give her scraps. And he probably would like to know there was a Chosen Child here.

If Taiki, the little sneak, hadn't told him already. Bastard.

Hikari swallowed and nodded, pulling something small and plush from her pocket. It fit more on her shoulder than her palm but sat there completely still for a few moments. Then it stretched like an actual puppy, yawning and letting out a little 'wan' sound.

Sayo had to fight that long, family bound instinctual urge to melt at the sight of something that cute. "Wow," she said instead, voice hoarse. "Really?"

Hikari grinned, a little bit proud at managing to get Sayo off guard in a new, more humorous way. "I was eight," she said with a laugh, pocketing the plush once more. "She was very accommodating to my needs."

"She?" Sayo repeated.

Hikari smiled peacefully. "That's right. Now come on, let's do this work."

Sayo looked at her and the dullness still did not return to her eyes. They were wide and incredulous and maybe even a little annoyed. Then she puffed out a breath of air and managed to smile. "Yes, ma'am."

Hikari called that a victory, if she did say so herself.

For a while, they worked in silence. Sayo typed slowly, mumbling to herself in agitated annoyance. She repeatedly shook out her fingers, rolling her eyes at herself.

"Can you just say your stuff out loud?"

Sayo shook her head absently, typing another string of lines. "Security hazard with you in the room and Chief's security. Don't want to get her in trouble for something she can't help." She rubbed her eyes. "Besides, I've been busy with other stuff, other education stuff. They need to figure out if it applies. I think it does but their decision will help determine a lot."

"If what applies?"

Sayo glanced at the device now flopped on Hikari's shoulder. Then she gave a weary smile. "Magic."

* * *

Breakfast interrupted the two of them, which was good because both of them were on the floor from the sheer amount of _tedium_ produced by all of the electronic form filling.

"I thought I had most of this _done_ already," Sayo muttered, slumping into her chair. Hikari just yawned. Her Tailmon had been peacefully bathing in the much stronger rays of sun equivalent, but the smell of fish - salmon, perhaps? - had woken her up.

Hikari grinned at her. "You're turning into such a glutton."

Tailmon swiped at her ear in play, getting much like an electric spark in reply. Sayo smiled a little as they left the room, Jeanne zipping back into one of Hikari's pockets.

"Clothes shopping with Frisk after breakfast." Shinta could sound as chirpy as he wanted to, it wouldn't make Sayo believe him any more than she already did. "Tutor should be here when we get back. Would you like to come along, Yagami-kun?"

The formality was just unnerving, considering this man could bend her into a pretzel with ease and all of that. Or at least she thought he could. "I… yes, if I could… I need supplies..." Though how she was going to pay for them was anybody's guess.

"I've got you covered." Sayo waved her hand. "I have a surplus."

Hikari squared her shoulders to look her in the eye. Sayo had no clue what to do with the constant weird eye contact aside from look to the side. "All right."

Sayo nodded smartly. Julia laughed at them, grabbing mashed rice (more than likely smashed, the girl really did enjoy weaponizing the spoon) out of the air. "Darja," she said simply, wiping her hand. "No."

The toddler squeaked. "Yes!"

"Oh she can talk," Sayo muttered.

"She's a chatterbox in every other language but the one I understand," Ryouma agreed, taking to the napkin. Then, very suddenly, he rose to his feet and moved towards the door.

"Could you let the boy knock," Julia asked him, going ignored. Shinta snorted over his… whatever meat that was. Hikari heard the sound of twin laughs across the hall and squinted. Tailmon didn't look up from her lap as Ryouma returned with Taiki's hand in his-oh.

Huh.

Hikari blinked once, then dipped her head in greeting. Taiki smiled back, elbowing Ryouma in the shoulder.

"Move," he mumbled. "You're blocking traffic."

"Your _hair_ blocks traffic," Ryouma replied, nonetheless doing as asked. They all settled and Hikari's eyes went wide at the sight of the food now put onto _her_ plate. Staying where she had prior to now had been great, and she had been warned it would not be, two good meals in a row felt unnatural.

She almost wanted to refuse but common sense kicked in.

She ate.

* * *

Sanada Arata was apparently a tutor, but all Sayo could help but think was that he couldn't tutor his way out of a closet.

He was wearing a onesie and a sweater. The hood was pulled so far over his head she couldn't see his forehead until he pulled it down. His black hair was scraggly from the lack of a comb, and his face pale and pinched. He yawned a lot. Probably had just woken up.

He dwarfed her, of course. Talosian puberty hadn't given her height. But he hunched. She'd learned to stop hunching because it didn't do any good.

"Hi," he said abruptly, looking from one girl to the other like he'd walked into the wrong home. "I'm supposed to bring both of you up to speed right?"

"Yep," Sayo said before Hikari could. Hikari's red eyes were narrowed so thin they looked like little scratches on her face. "Just taking tests today, so you don't have to stay long." She would rather that he didn't stay at all, so she could avoid the inevitable judgment of a well-raised intelligent person on the right path seeing the stupidity of a child soldier. Or as well-educated as DigitalCITY got.

Then again, he looked like he spent more time in blue light than actual light these days.

Sanada Arata shook his head, hair moving with him as he did. "I'm paid to help you. And I have homework to do. Might as well sit it out."

Sayo almost twitched. Almost. Instead she nodded, frown deepening into her face. "All right," she breathed. "Frisk, this could take a while. Why don't you go with Uncle Shinta? He's going actual shopping."

Frisk squinted at her, but for all she knew that was their normal expression. Besides, they wouldn't trust her after just a matter of hours. She was just a means of survival, a means to an end. At least that was how it was supposed to work, according to dad.

Sayo smiled at them, and they took that and went along their way with suspiciously narrowed eyes. "Next time we can work together," she told them as they left. Hikari just giggled.

"Little brother?" Arata asked as he rummaged in his backpack. His skin was a little slack, likely lack of hefty meals as the cause.

Sayo shook her head, shoulders hunching as quickly as they had fallen before she could really stop them. "Picked them up."

The dark eyes glittered for a moment. "Wisteria child. Gotcha."

Sayo glanced at him, eyes beginning to narrow into a glare. However, her body relaxed, or seemingly gave in to the inevitable. "Yes, they are." She paused and said, with some reluctance. "I have a little sister. She's in boarding school."

"I went to boarding school for two years and got expelled." Arata offered. "My uncle laughed about it, said that was the family way to be too good for conventional militaristic ways."

"My dad said the same to my brother," Hikari said, fiddling with her new stylus pen. They needed more of these on Earth. She felt like a bit of an old lady.

Arata turned to look at her and her eyes went wide. She stared at him right back. "Whoa," he said, proceeding to grin a bit more than she should. "Neat. No wonder they said you needed a dose of everything."

"She needs an EDEN handle and a regulated Digivice," Sayo offered, watching Tailmon's fur fluff close to her giant ears.

Hikari glanced at her D-3. Arata followed her gaze and let out a snort. "That piece of garbage?"

Hikari clutched it tighter. "This "piece of garbage" is alive," she said, working hard to keep the frost from her voice.

Arata shook his head. "Yeah the thing in it is, but the technology around it is obsolete. It needs an evolution if it hopes to compete here with the amount of Soul you actually need to use in everyday life here."

For a moment, Hikari glanced skyward. Sayo hoped it was to pray for patience. Then she looked back at him, hunched shoulders gradually lowered. "I see..."

Arata dismissed it. "Sorry. If I had a tactful bone in my body, it'd dissolve."

Sayo laughed before she could quite control it. "Sounds like me."

The strange prickling in her neck wasn't going away but it was nice so nice so she didn't want to leave it all of a sudden. Though the urge to cry could definitely disappear.

If that went away, she almost thought she could be _friends_ with this guy. Perish that thought.

* * *

Three hours and a lot of hand cramps later, they stopped for lunch.

Sayo flicked through menus on the screen in front of her fingers and Hikari watched with fascination at the sheer _ease_ of the motion as new windows sparked beneath them. "Whatcha like? Pizza? Burgers? Fish? It's all homegrown and tested for poison."

"… What was that last part?" She had never been poisoned during her tenure as a Chosen Child but it likely had gotten close at one point.

"We used to get food delivered so it would often have to be checked for poison because of population culling."

Hikari stared for a few moments. Then she muttered, _"Fuck."_

Sayo stared at her for a few moments. Then she turned away. "We just met," she said before she could stop it.

Hikari laughed out right.

Arata snickered at the two of them, only to be pulled away (metaphorically, though Hikari was pretty sure that Shinta physically could pull every person in this room barring Julia with a hand if he felt like it) by Shinta himself. Hikari watched pleasantries go back and forth until the lanky boy was set in front of a plate with eyes bigger than his stomach. "Uh… sir..." The boy's rough voice was pleasantly awkward. "I… well, there's no way I could finish all of this."

"I spent my adolescence in America," the dragon man replied, settling his squirming daughter into her high chair. "I don't expect you to."

He flushed (which brought some color to his face, she was starting to think this person could give Koushiro-kun a run for his money). "Oh… right."

"It should last you about until your next training session yes?"

Arata looked at the staggering plate and managed a nod. Hikari could see the bobbing of his adam's apple.

"Then we'll see you then as well." Shinta smiled and Hikari got the distinct impression that somehow she wasn't getting spared from this either.

Soon enough though, she was proven right. Arata left and was replaced by Taiki who tossed Hikari a watch without looking back. She was tempted to tell him that she had multiple portable clocks when her Digivice let out another angry buzz and forced her to drop it.

"What was that?"

"Your Digivice getting jealous." Sayo shrugged. "That's your PDA thing so you don't try to make it be a computer."

"Digivices are computers, Sayo."

"Oh. Right."

Hikari gave up, and went to pick it up again. This time, digivice and watch chirped happily and her device slept on. She was so confused. Was this what her friends had felt like every time she and her brother breathed funny?

* * *

Sayo, by the time dusk fell, was finally left alone. Not by their choice mind you, but because you had to do your Tamer Union leave appointments alone, without outside influence in the room. It didn't matter if you were underage or overage or disabled or anything. It was something you had to do yourself, just like how you started. The choice being right or wrong didn't matter. And it was knowing that that made the decision so difficult for many.

Today, for Sayo, however, the choice was easy. She had plenty of Digimon left, and her family would be more than happy to watch over the few that didn't stay behind at her farm, but there were only two left that she had deliberately kept combat ready and that was only after they'd both begged and wheedled and whined for it. They would both claim they hadn't of course, but they had and she loved them too much to make them go out and fight for someone else after all of that.

They would love looking after Darja when she wasn't around. If she went out at all, and if Frisk stuck around.

A part of her hoped the child would and wouldn't flee from their house and the free food source, though honestly Sayo couldn't blame them if they tried. Kid wouldn't get far, but still.

She stared quietly at the front door of the building for another three minutes. She could always have the wrong building. Or the wrong time. Or not be allowed to resign.

 _And you won't know until you get inside, dumbass,_ her mind reminded her without sympathy.

Sayo squared her shoulders and walked inside. The automatic doors slid shut behind her like the door to a prison cell.

Almost an hour later, Sayo exited outside those same doors with the same lack of expression on her face. She took slow steps towards the train station three blocks away, legs dragging like bags of bricks on the ground.

"Are you all right?" someone asked as the clouds above her head started to churn into grey.

"Does it look like it?" she asked, stuffing her hands in her pockets at the wind. "I just quit my job. The only thing I know how to do in my life."

"I'm sure you know how to do more than be a meat shield," said the voice, steady and warm and maybe even amused. "You're seventeen. There's got to be more you can learn."

She let out a weary snort. "How would you know?"

"It's just a well-educated guess."

"More well-educated than me."

The person hummed and Sayo whirled to see their face, to punch the smug look out of their eyes-

There was nobody there, just some train card terminals with sparking blue screens begging for repairs and the wind making someone's bird feeder shift and drop seeds to the ground with little taps.

Sayo couldn't help it. She laughed. "I'm insane," she decided. "The demon lords knocked out what was left of my god damn brain. I'm god damn hearing things. Annie's gonna lock me up next to my mom."

What a shitty way to spend the rest of her life.

She made her way up to the train and almost went right back down the stairs at the sight of the empty tracks. She was definitely not safe for a lot of passengers. But it was that or teleportation.

She'd take the potential health hazard. That thought in mind, she settled on the bench and waited for the seven-ten to arrive.

Unnoticed, someone was there. A small, knowing smile sat on their face, grey eyes watching through glitches of blue from beside the ticket terminals. They tapped their fingers on the screen and watched her fiddle with her now near-useless digivice until the train rolled by. They watched until she was gone. Then the smile faded and they looked towards the rain starting to fall.

"You really do always think the worst of yourself," they said, before they too, disappeared from the station.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** This fic is so rude. It just doesn't want to be done I swear. But we're back again, and we have Arata! Next chapter is probably going into a certain rabbit-dog and the chat room! Let's rock!


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